Ancient Korea was the country most closely related to China, and its country was also based on Confucianism as the basic ideology, and it is precisely for this reason that ancient Korea also encountered many problems similar to China, and Lee Jia-won, the author of "History of Korean Literature", summed up the three major ills of the Joseon Dynasty: the imprisonment of sins, the imprisonment of The Northern Province, and the imprisonment of the Party.
This Northern Province Imprisonment refers to the regional discrimination against Hamgyong Province, the Party Prison is the Party Struggle, and the "Shou Evil Imprisonment" refers to a special situation of the Joseon Dynasty; the difference between the Two Andong Dynasty.
One might say, how is this a special case for North Korea? This ancient East Asia, and even the whole world, after all, in ancient times, polygamy (polygamy), their status is not the same, of course, their children's status is also different, this is very normal, after all, relative to the inheritance of family affection, family business is also very important.
However, the difference between concubines in Korea is much more serious than in China, and in ancient China, the difference between concubines was more important before the Tang and Song dynasties, and weakened generation by generation through the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. In some eras or families where the difference between concubines and concubines is not very large, wives and concubines will call each other "shoulder sisters". Moreover, after the Song and Yuan dynasties, there were men who established concubines as regular wives after the death or abandonment of their wives, and they needed to go through a ritual called Fuzheng. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the distinction between concubines and concubines was no longer strict, and it was more common to correct concubines.
But in Korea, this situation does not exist, the Joseon Dynasty era of the concubine difference is extremely strict, and its root cause lies in the class system of the Joseon Dynasty, which is mainly divided into three levels, namely: 1, the royal family and the scholar (two classes) 2, the middle people 3, the civilians, in addition to even prisoners of war and slaves, they do not belong to the class range.
According to the regulations, men and women of different classes cannot be married, and if a man of a lower class marries a woman of a higher class, he commits the crime of abduction, and the marriage is invalid, which is necessary, the toad wants to eat swan meat and dream; if a woman of a lower class wants to marry a man of a higher class, this can be done, but generally can only be a concubine and not a wife.
Moreover, after the death of the wife, he could not be corrected
For example, after the death of Empress Wending's brother Yin Yuanheng, Zheng Lanzhen was given the right wife and Feng Zhengyi Zhenjing, and after the death of Empress Wending' concubine, Lady Zhenjing was also posthumously honored.
And to make matters worse, the Joseon Dynasty had a "law of subordination to the mother", in which the social status of children was completely subordinate to the mother, with the exception of the children of the royal family or clan
。 Children of non-royal or clan families are to be served by their fathers, their fathers, and their brothers and sisters, and if their mothers are of untouchable origin, their status in the family is equivalent to that of slaves.
This is very perverted, good evil is a milk compatriot, you say that the status is divided into high and low, even if it is high or low, we don't want to think about what the family property is, but just because of the low status of the mother, I actually became a slave of my compatriots.
Moreover, what is worse is that women do not have any normal channels to get rid of this status, if men are untouchables, they can participate in the imperial examination (the Korean Dynasty examination is divided into liberal arts, martial arts and miscellaneous subjects, the liberal arts are monopolized by the nobility, the commoners and untouchables only rely on the examination of miscellaneous subjects and martial arts to enhance their status, if the untouchables are neutralized, they are only promoted to middle-aged people), women do not exist, they are born untouchables, then they have basically been untouchables.
This brought quite a lot of news influence to the Joseon Dynasty, for the Dalit class, it is difficult to identify with the country, when the Japanese and Manchurians attacked Korea, a bunch of Korean Dalits fought quite "leading the way", what about these Japanese and Manchurian invaders? Of course it was very happy to give them a high status.
Note: This situation is shown in "Namhansanseong", where Jeong Ming-shou, who served as an interpreter and guide for the Qing army, was treated inhumanely in Korea, and after defecting to the Qing army, he had the opportunity to get ahead, so he was not ashamed to defect to the enemy.
Why did the Joseon Dynasty make such a rule? In fact, the provision of "imprisonment of sins" was implemented from the time of Emperor Taejong of Joseon, the purpose of which was to slow down the growth rate of the aristocratic population, otherwise the society would not be able to supply these "full-fed" nobles, which is also the traditional "untouchables with mothers" custom of the Korean nation. At that time, the rule was generally that the nobles let their sons become monks, and the royal family did the same.
However, after the establishment of the Joseon Dynasty, the marriage relations between the two classes were gradually chaotic, and there were two wives or even three wives and the situation of "taking concubines as wives", resulting in a bunch of disputes, so there was this regulation, in 1414, The Joseon Taejong accepted the suggestion of the Grand Si Xian Fu Grand Si Xian Liu Guan, while properly resolving the previous problem of contending for concubines, explicitly prohibited polygamy, implemented a marriage system with polygam and concubines, and promulgated the "Law on the Imprisonment of Concubines" the following year.
For example, in the last year of the reign of Joseon Young-zu, in 1772, the "Tongqing" order was issued, allowing the Nobles of Dengkeju and the Eastern Class to serve in important positions in the Qing Dynasty, and immediately used several of them to serve as important officials of the Qing Dynasty, which was a groundbreaking move since the founding of the Joseon Dynasty. Although the Law of Imprisonment of Sins has not been completely abolished, its binding force has been greatly reduced.
But in general, the "difference between concubines" during the Joseon Dynasty was still quite serious, and it was not until 1894 that the system was completely abolished.