Earticle

초록

영어

Selling body of oneself is an act of selling oneself or a family member as a slave, which was prohibited. However, the people starved from frequent poor harvest, and then the government was obliged to permit selling body of oneself. Existing ancient documents shows that selling body of oneself started around the year of 1750 and was 10% of the slave trade. It grew almost 30% about 1790, dropped to around 5%, yet increased over 40%. Therefore, the rate of selling body of oneself rose in the slave trades throughout the latter of 18th and 19thcentury. However, the academic world had little interest, because they took only a view of the caste system breakup from escape and emancipation of the latter period of Joseon Dynasty slave history. This study examined the cause by analyzing existing documents of selling body of oneself. The causes were various, but famine from the poor harvest was the biggest one and the family ethic which was ‘Hyo’ was one too. Despite escape and emancipation, selling body of oneself was the key role of existing slaves until the end of the Joseon Dynasty. Once the selling body of oneself was permitted, the people tended to resolve the problems of hardships through it, and they emphasized ‘Hyo.’ For example, when all family members starved by famine, the head of household planned to sell one of the family member for sustenance, and got permission through making an excuse of non-existent sick parents. The price of selling body of oneself was lower than normal slave trade, so refunds were often. Then, slave buyers kept from refund or asked for much higher amount of money for emancipation than normal slave trade when they purchased. The remarkable fact is that many people who had been slaves and freed by paying money sold body of oneself when they went through hardships from famine. The life of lower classes of the latter of Joseon Dynasty was unstable.

목차

Ⅰ. 문제의 제기
 Ⅱ. 자매의 원인
 Ⅲ. 자매의 양태
 Ⅳ. 결론
 ABSTRACT
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저자

• 전경목 [ Chon, Kyoung-Mok | 한국학중앙연구원 교수 ]

참고문헌