K-Confucianism

 

On Oct. 24 I spoke at a forum on “K-Confucianism” at a newly founded center called the Institute for Korean Confucian Culture in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province. There were several important issues that I discovered at the conference.

I was struck by the use of the word “K-Confucianism." At first, I thought the expression was odd or too faddish, maybe not quite right. But the more we talked about it and the more I’ve thought about it, I think it’s appropriate. The point is to present Confucianism in a more up-to-date fashion inside Korea, and to make Confucianism appealing to international audiences.

My contribution to the forum was to suggest that the way to make Confucianism more appealing to younger people in Korea today is to establish the fact that Confucianism and “bu-gye sahoe,” patrilineal society, are two different things. Only by separating patrilineal society from Confucianism can Confucianism survive!

The patrilineal issues include factors of suppression of women — the main factor that makes Confucianism unappealing to young women — together with the issue of hierarchy. And there are other problems with patrilineality in modern society. A woman can legally be the head of a household, whereas not long ago it was the law that a man must be the head of a household. The registry of households is very important; that is where official government records are kept — births, deaths and marriages.

The ancestor ceremonies are becoming simpler and less burdensome, but are still focused on male ancestors. That might change as Korea becomes more balanced and moves away from the paternal orientation. Female ancestors might begin to play a larger role in ancestor ceremonies.

As Korea pulls away from a male-dominated society, as women are playing a greater role in society (for example, 70 percent of the incoming class at the foreign ministry are women), Korea will re-evaluate the roles of gender and will steer toward a balanced approach to work and life. Before the dominance of patrilineality in the last 300 years, Korea had greater balance in gender roles. When I speak to Korean audiences, I’ll sometimes ask “What proceeded the patrilineal (bu-gye) family?” The answer is almost always “matrilineal” ("mo-gye"). But that is not the case. Before the patrilineal transformation of Korea in roughly the last quarter of the 17th century, Korea did not have a matrilineal system, but rather had a balanced system, usually called the bilateral system, or a cognatic system, meaning that relatives on both sides of the family were “recognized.”

When Korea developed its patrilineal system, they departed from marrying freely at either the husband’s village, or marrying at the wife’s village, and thereafter only married at the husband’s village. Today, Korea has long left the practice of marrying and living in the husband’s village.

Family records, "jokbo," are the written manifestation of patrilineal society and male domination — the jokbo is a record centered on the male descendants of a male ancestor. As Korea moves away from a patrilineal society, the concept of genealogy or family history will surely change. There are many family offices in Korea, "hwasuhoe" or "jongchinhoe," that are staffed completely by men. I suppose that will change and family associations, if the examples of such in America can indicate a new approach, will change and women will become more interested in research on family lines. Indeed, much of the research on family history in the West, and organizations of extended families are led by women. Will Korea go in that direction? It’s unimaginable now, but Korea in the last half century, has done many unimaginable things.

Among the most unimaginable things Korea has done is to shift its focus from the necessity of having a son, to the preference for having a daughter, to the present-day preference for having the lowest birth rate in the world. Maybe it’s unfair to say that is a “preference,” but that is, in fact, the case. Most people consider a birth rate lower than the replacement rate of society as highly problematic. And maybe K-Confucianism can help here as well. Confucianism has always been about the family — the “five relationships” and the “three bonds” are all about family and primary relationships within society, including parent-to-child and husband-to-wife. Perhaps K-Confucianism will step up to the plate and call upon young people to marry and to have children, more than two. The government slogans limiting births to one or two per family have sufficiently brainwashed society to the point where the thought of having three or four children is unthinkable. This, too, will probably change as K-Confucianism adjusts to the realities of the twenty-first century.

At least we can hope so.

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.