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ljwritesSo I've begun reading basic information (links to Korean page) about the history of my heroine's people circa 1st century B.C. I've learned this in school, glanced over web pages and so on but now I'm reading with a purpose in mind, namely to learn what kind of people these were and how their worldview and customs might have affected my heroine's story.
One thing that strikes me is that the customs of Buyeo, or Buri, were oppressive as hell by modern standards. Their politics were centered entirely around the nobility, and it seems their subjects were commoners in name but close to slaves in terms of the way they were treated. "Serf" may be the Western equivalent of their status. We know about four articles of Buri's laws, which were:
- Murderers are to be executed, and their families will be enslaved. (By which I understand even their minimal protections as commoners will be taken away.)
- Anyone who steals must repay what is stolen twelvefold. (And if they couldn't afford to, I imagine they paid with their or their family's freedom.)
- Adulterers are to be executed. (What exactly was adultery, though? I'm guessing it applied more strictly to married women than to men.)
- Extremely jealous wives are to be executed, and their bodies are to be abandoned in the wilds to rot.
That last part is giving me particular trouble. They killed women for being jealous, and wouldn't even let them be buried? (In fact the woman's family could eventually bury her, but they had to pay back the bride price to do so.) Not that I didn't know this society was patriarchal, but this seems pretty bad. It also has implications for my heroine's story, since her second husband had a wife and son he had left behind when he fled his home country. How did her people's taboo against being jealous of her husband's other wives affect her?
I would also like to clarify that extreme jealousy or envy on the part of a wife [妬忌] was not the same thing as simple jealousy [嫉妬], and quite possibly included acts such as domestic violence and abuse. To better understand the concept I've downloaded a paper discussing depictions of this womanly crime in Choseon literature, though the time period discussed is about a millennium and a half later than my heroine's and is pretty much a different world. To get a more accurate picture for her particular time period I may have to find sources closer to her in time and space.
One way I understand the prohibition against extreme jealousy is as a means to preserve the institution of marriage as it existed at the time. Polygamy was widely practiced in Buri, of course, as it was in most of East Asia. With Buri there was the extra twist that a man had an obligation to take on his late elder brother's widow. (I'm actually using this as a plot point to bring about the marriage of my heroine and her second husband, who happened to be like a half-stepcousin of her first.) This meant even a formerly monogamous man could find himself with extra wives by virtue of having dead brothers, and obviously it wouldn't be conducive to domestic harmony if these wives were, well, jealous. I'd like to think the execution penalty only applied to the really bad cases that we would recognize as criminal conduct today--there are absolutely hair-raising stories throughout history of "jealous" women mistreating their husbands' other wives and concubines--but that may be wishful thinking on my part.
One thing that strikes me is that the customs of Buyeo, or Buri, were oppressive as hell by modern standards. Their politics were centered entirely around the nobility, and it seems their subjects were commoners in name but close to slaves in terms of the way they were treated. "Serf" may be the Western equivalent of their status. We know about four articles of Buri's laws, which were:
- Murderers are to be executed, and their families will be enslaved. (By which I understand even their minimal protections as commoners will be taken away.)
- Anyone who steals must repay what is stolen twelvefold. (And if they couldn't afford to, I imagine they paid with their or their family's freedom.)
- Adulterers are to be executed. (What exactly was adultery, though? I'm guessing it applied more strictly to married women than to men.)
- Extremely jealous wives are to be executed, and their bodies are to be abandoned in the wilds to rot.
That last part is giving me particular trouble. They killed women for being jealous, and wouldn't even let them be buried? (In fact the woman's family could eventually bury her, but they had to pay back the bride price to do so.) Not that I didn't know this society was patriarchal, but this seems pretty bad. It also has implications for my heroine's story, since her second husband had a wife and son he had left behind when he fled his home country. How did her people's taboo against being jealous of her husband's other wives affect her?
I would also like to clarify that extreme jealousy or envy on the part of a wife [妬忌] was not the same thing as simple jealousy [嫉妬], and quite possibly included acts such as domestic violence and abuse. To better understand the concept I've downloaded a paper discussing depictions of this womanly crime in Choseon literature, though the time period discussed is about a millennium and a half later than my heroine's and is pretty much a different world. To get a more accurate picture for her particular time period I may have to find sources closer to her in time and space.
One way I understand the prohibition against extreme jealousy is as a means to preserve the institution of marriage as it existed at the time. Polygamy was widely practiced in Buri, of course, as it was in most of East Asia. With Buri there was the extra twist that a man had an obligation to take on his late elder brother's widow. (I'm actually using this as a plot point to bring about the marriage of my heroine and her second husband, who happened to be like a half-stepcousin of her first.) This meant even a formerly monogamous man could find himself with extra wives by virtue of having dead brothers, and obviously it wouldn't be conducive to domestic harmony if these wives were, well, jealous. I'd like to think the execution penalty only applied to the really bad cases that we would recognize as criminal conduct today--there are absolutely hair-raising stories throughout history of "jealous" women mistreating their husbands' other wives and concubines--but that may be wishful thinking on my part.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-03 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-04 01:49 am (UTC)Sadly the records don't mention what happened in the case of multiple widows, since everything I've read on the subject involved only one or just focused on one. I guess they could all go to one brother or be split between brothers depending on their respective abilities to support them, or maybe even based on personal preference, i.e. friends or sisters might ask to stay together. Maybe the family could send back the wives whose marriages weren't politically or economically important, or whose kin were willing to support them.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-04 02:09 am (UTC)If a man suddenly found himself married to two of his brother's widows who are best buds, I can see family conflict and side taking happen real fast.