The nobility of Joseon period intended to maintain their social position through marriage with people whose surname were prominent. They also concentrated on establishing marriage relations with specified surnames in accord with their own families thr...
The nobility of Joseon period intended to maintain their social position through marriage with people whose surname were prominent. They also concentrated on establishing marriage relations with specified surnames in accord with their own families through accumulated experiences between generations. Concentrated on 16 surnames were more than half the 117 surnames of Andong Kwons' female spouses, the subjects of analysis.
This phenomenon became generalized only after the 17th century when the base for the single-lineage village was beginning to be established. Because a circle to offer marriage could not be concentrated unless a surname group who asserts a certain figure to be its famous ancestor in a specified area resided and the trend that other family prefers such member as a spouse extended. Though there was a time gap, close corelation existed between the development of the single-lineage village and concentration of a circle to offer marriage.
Seeing from the standpoint of a marriage area, the nobility wanted to obtain their spouses as from far as possible. But, due to the influence of famous the single-lineage village formed in their neighborhood, they obtained most of their spouses from nearby area(Gun, Hyeon) or, even at the farthest, within province(Do). In case of the Andong Kw?n families, marriage within Myeon was 7.4%, marriage within Gun was 26.7% and the remains were expected to be marriage within Do including nearby Gun and Hyeon. The ratio similar to such ratio showed in the late Joseon period as well as in a recent famous the single-lineage village. This is another case where the tradition of the late Joseon period was handed down to today.
In the meantime, it was revealed that the ratio of remarried couples who came from the same Gun and Hyeon was very high compared with that of remarried couples whose spouses came from other area. In case of remarriage, a circle to offer marriage was more limited to the inside of an area, which was related to the discrepancy in age between husbands and wives and the social standing of their families.
That is, the average gap in age of husbands and wives who got married for the first time was 3.4 years old, but in case of most of remarried couples, the husbands were older than wives and the gap in age was 12.3 years old. Also, from the viewpoint of economical power based on the scope of retaining servants or social standing judged through production of central government officials, in most cases, the families of the subjects of remarriage were inferior in strength to those of the subjects of first marriage.
Unlike remarriage, a concubine was not acknowledged as a formal wife and thus her descendant was treated discriminatively. Illegitimate lines of the Andong Kwon lineage in this area accounted for 28% of the total members, showing high ratio. The illegitimate lines whose social standing were lower than legitimate lines were restricted in marriage and even the ratio of remarriage were only half of that of legitimate lines. But, illegitimate lines formed the single-lineage village on the basis of the same identity, kinship relation, and certain economical power, maintaining their own circle to offer marriage. Instead a village whose solidarity based on kinship relation and economical power is weak and where legitimate and illegitimate lines were mixed, the scope of selecting a spouse were more restricted.