Widows' Position and Agency in the Late Choson Dynasty

Abstract

This paper examines what gender norms were constructed while the patriarchal order based upon Neo-Confucianism gained strength in the latter part of Choson period, and to what extent these norms were actualized in people's lives. Through a microscopic analysis of the Tansong Hojok-the household registers of Tansong County, Kyongsang Province from 1678 to 1789-this article examines the changes in the ways in which heads of households were recorded, the changed position of widows in the household registers, and the state of residence and remarriage of widows. While it was common that widows were recorded as heads of the household in the seventeenth century, they tended to be recorded as mothers of their sons in the eighteenth century. This change of widows' status in family registers was the product of state policy to reorganize the society according to chongbop chilso. The change of household register system began to expand the idea of strict patrilineal succession to the lower strata of the society. However, it is difficult to conclude that chongbop chilso became rooted in people's everyday lives. The cases of the state of residence and remarriage of widows make it evident that they crisscrossed the boundary of the gender norms-as much as their social status and circumstances allowed-and made use of various life strategies.