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ABSTRACT
This paper aims to examine the situation of joint families in rural Korean society between the late seventeenth and late nineteenth century, considering changes over time and differences in social status. Also, it hopes to provide some clues for understanding the characteristics of the pre-modern Korean family system by comparing it with China and Europe.
We used two different approaches in this paper. First, we reconstructed the family structure in Korea based on the composition of the household and compared the results generally with China, Japan and Europe. We found that joint families were less common in pre-modern southeastern Korea than in the northeastern region of China. Around half of all families belonged to a simple family form. A reasonably high share was also found for extended families and joint families. The share of joint families was lower than that of northeastern China, but was similar to that of Japanese Nishinomiya, higher than that of Britain and France in Western Europe and that of Serbia in Eastern Europe. Second, we analyzed multi-generational living arrangements for elderly people. As a result, we discovered that in pre-modern southeastern Korea the share of elderly people living in joint families was higher than in Western Europe. Compared with Eastern Europe, however, the numbers were on a similar level. In the example of Korea, the living arrangements for elderly people were heavily influenced by the social status of their families. Based on Confucian family ethics, families with a relatively high social status showed a stronger percentage of stem families and joint families.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Northwest European nuclear household systems are characterized by three rules of normal household formation behavior, that is late marriage for both sexes, after marriage, a couple are in charge of their household, before marriage young people often circulate between households as servants. (Hajnal, Citation1982).
2. Here ‘fenjia’ in Chinese is translated into ‘household division’. ‘Household division’ means the procedure in which related document to the provision of household division is formulated and will have legal effect. ‘Fenjia’ in Chinese does not mean the separation of living space but the separation of economic relationships related to livelihood between parents and their children. Accordingly, even after household division, children could still live with their parents in different space of the same garden or house. Also, household division does not mean the division of all family property for part of the family property is set as shared wealth jointly managed by brothers.
3. The interval between 1690 and 1714 is 24 years, between 1774 and 1802 it is 27 years.
4. Among these, the data for the year 1714 are a combination of the data of the Joam region of the year 1714 and the data of Wolbae of the year 1720 due to the household register of Wolbae of the year 1714 is not preserved.
5. With the beginning of the nineteenth century the majority of children (童幼層) were excluded from the household registers and in the rural counties and prefectures household registers were compiled for young adults for which the central government reduced tax amount – the amount of total number of people – in the whole country (口摠) in the whole country (Kim, Citation2002b).
6. The household registration system, in principle, is compiled in accordance with household heads’ registration. However, it is customary that the central government lets those capable of paying taxes register with the system and also maintains the total number of households in different regions at a certain level. The total number of households varies each year. However, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it has stayed at the same level as local governments have selectively registered households with the system in line with existing data. Making up the household registration system is definitely intended to control population. The reason why only selected households are registered with the system is that the government is not necessary to control all population. In principle, registered households are the direct objects of taxation and control. Therefore, they are households with tax capacity and qualification. The central government entrusts the control of households to local governments to guarantee that local governments implement the rule of centralization on the basis of self-discipline. As a matter of fact, this is how a totalitarian and government is ruled at a lower cost.
7. The household registration rate is quite hard to grasp. Even so, some researches have provided significant clues. For example, in the eighteenth century, continuous registration rate of households every three years has been kept at 80% in Tansong area while the lasting registration of citizens was lower than 80% (Kim, Citation2003).
8. The jik refers to occupational classification.
9. Four ancestors refer to father, grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather on mother’s side.
10. Shima’s suggestion of a custom in the Joseon Dynasty entailing that the youngest child would take care of the parents until their death is a misconception (Shima, Citation1992). In fact, it was normal that the oldest son would live with his parents in the same household until their death. This is based on the fact that in late Joseon Dynasty the eldest son would receive more than other siblings because he conducted the memorial service for the ancestors.
11. For example, after parents pass away, brothers would probably divide the household even if they are registered in one household. On the contrary, when one parent passes away, brothers or living parent and the son would probably not divide the household even if they are registered in different households.
12. At that time, when households were under survey, every local official followed different policies. The exact influence on the household survey should be analyzed in detail.
13. Although not included in this paper, this tendency was also observed for the household registration of the year 1798.
14. In many cases, records for the population under the age of 16 were left out after the late 17th and early eighteenth century. This omission in the records is related to the function of household records as a basis for taxation (Kim, Citation2001). Therefore, it is quite possible that the share of people of the age of 60 or older appears to be high. But the most of population under the age of 16 is unmarried population, so the omission of a considerable share of young people under the age of 16 does not have a great impact on measuring co-residence patterns of the elderly.
15. The figure of 1,372 elderly people refers to cases since a couple is counted as a single case.
16. Stem families include those formed after multiple brothers divide from the original family and those formed by the only child. Though the probability of the inheritance of only child changes, it will not affect the family form largely from the perspective of demography. Consequently, families formed by only child could also belong to stem families and have not been distinguished from others in statistics.
17. In late Joseon, many common people tried to advance socially by entering public office which must be understood against the background of the ‘yangban-aspiring society’ at that time (Miyajima, Citation1996, pp. 243–261).
18. According to the households of Tansong, nobi registered accounted for the majority of the population in the seventeenth century. However, at the end of the seventeenth century, registered nobi began to decrease. And they only made up 15% of the total population in the nineteenth century, and then it increased to 25% in the middle of the nineteenth century. Such a state has been confirmed in the household registration of Daegu (Son, Citation2007, pp. 286–287).