Korea’s new jokbo
Korean genealogical research is at a crossroads, although many may not know it. Family history has been embodied in what is called “jokbo." We can say that a jokbo is a kind of photograph of a society at a point in time. Typically, the jokbo that Korea knows today shows a male dominated, patrilineal family structure — but Korea is no longer a male dominant, patrilineal society. Does that mean jokbo will change? Yes — it must.
As women have gained more rights and prerogatives in society, we can say the old ways of male domination are changing. Korea may not be a truly equal society yet, but it’s getting closer. Women are doing much better in areas where education makes a difference — for example, the foreign ministry recruits new diplomats on the basis of a test. In recent years, 70 percent of new hires were women.
We see similar levels of success for women in other areas of government employment, and in addition, women have played stronger roles for some time in the fields of education and medicine.
Whether we can argue that Korea is truly balanced in terms of gender or not, it is clear that the movement is strong and that Korea is closer — even if it is not there yet. In other words, the male dominated, patrilineal society is in the rearview mirror.
That being the case, where is jokbo?
Jokbo, as we see it today, is clearly a male-dominated document — it is a record of “men, related to men, through men.” Each page starts with a male ancestor at the top, with his male heirs below him, each in his own generation, which is marked with vertical lines across the page. Eldest sons are recorded first and then younger sons. After all the sons are recorded, the daughters are listed by their husband’s name — not their own name. Records also appear for the wives that marry into the man’s lineage. Women do not give up their maiden names, but are listed as the daughter of a man, by his name again.
Women are also daughters who are listed by the name of the family they “marry out” to. Wives “marry in” and daughters “marry out.” They are in the document, listed as the wife of so-and-so and the daughter of so-and-so.
Now, things are changing. Strangely, we can say they are going back the way they used to be. My Ph.D. dissertation addressed the creation of the patrilineal system. Prior to the late 17th century, women had equal standing in households. They couldn't hold political office, but at home they held their own property and could inherit from their mother and from their father. Daughters took part in the all-important ancestor ceremonies on a rotational basis with their brothers. Marriages were sometimes a matter of settling in the husband’s village, but sometimes they would settle in the wife’s village. This fact is preserved in Korean words for marriage, where parties can either "sijip-gada" and go to the groom’s house, or "jangga-gada" and to go to the bride's house.
Jokbo records of society as it was back then were different from the jokbo that most Koreans are familiar with today. In fact, there were two different kinds of jokbo — one was top down and the other was bottom up.
The top-down version, unlike today's version, included all the descendants, male and female, with children listed in birth order, not boys first and girls last. There are only a few of these surviving, including from the Andong Kwon family, the Munwha Yu and the Yeojin Song.
There were also bottom-up jokbo, known as the “palgojo-do” or the chart of the eight great, great-grandfathers, with the individual listed at the bottom, moving up through their father and mother, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and great, great-grandfathers branching out, literally, like a family tree. These records also include the grandmothers, great-grandmothers and great, great-grandmothers.
This chart is the same thing that Western people call a five-generation pedigree chart.
This is the jokbo of Korea’s future. You can say it’s like the old chart of the past, you can say it’s like the modern Western chart of today and you can say it reflects genetic facts, but it is the direction Korea is going. The jokbo of the future is balanced equally between men and women.
Mark Peterson (frogoutsidethewell@gmail.com) is a professor emeritus of Korean studies at Brigham Young University in Utah. The views expressed here are his own.