Sungkyun

Journal of
East
Asian
Studies
The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and
Adoption on Family Succession in the
17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based
on the Andong Kwŏn Clan Genealogy

SON, Byunggiu
Sungkyunkwan University

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol.10, No.1.

2010 Academy of East Asian Studies. pp.9-31

You may use content in the SJEAS back issues only for your personal, non-commercial use. Contents of each article do not represent opinions of SJEAS.
 Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol.10 No.1
2010 Academy of East Asian Studies. pp.9-31

The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on

Family Succession in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural
Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy
SON, Byunggiu
Sungkyunkwan University

ABSTRACT
Based on the demographic data from the Andong Kwon clan genealogies, the rates of men’s
remarriage reached a peak in the late 17th century but it gradually fell afterwards. Men’s remarriage
was no longer considered as an effective means of having a legitimate son. On the other hand, having
too many legitimate sons could cause a risk of degrading the family’s financial strength and social
status. o control the risk. In the mean time, The rates of adoption increased beginning in the late 17th
century and soared in the 19th century. People were giving up on their efforts to have a legitimate son
and instead making an attempt to maintain the family’s social status and financial means through a
kyeja. As the only son, the adopted heir could inherit the family’s property all alone and the rest of
his family members at his original home could control the dispersion of the family’s financial
resources caused by the continued practice of the partible inheritance. Especially under the situation
where the social status and financial strength of the high class was getting weaker in the 19th
century, the distribution of property through adoption helped stabilize the household economy.

Keywords: remarriage, adoption, family succession, inheritance, heir, genealogy

Introduction
It is generally accepted that in the Choson Dynasty, it was not until after the 17th
century that the unity of patrilineal descent groups was significantly consolidated.
Examining the succession of descent in the unit of family as exhibited in the
changes in the inheritance system and the tendency of adoption, Mark A. Peterson
presents some causes of the change to support this general theory.1 Before the 17th
century, he observes, the necessity of adopting a son to a family was not strongly
felt even when there was no son in the family because daughters enjoyed an equal
share in inheriting her parents’ property. Peterson pays attention to the fact that by
the late 17th century, however, the number of daughters inheriting their parents’
property sharply decreased, while the instances of patrilineal adoption increased.
The eldest son of a family was playing an increasingly important role in
maintaining the family ritual for his ancestors, which reinforced his rights to the
family property and ritual. This tendency resulted in the formation of the
‘patrilineal system based’ on the ‘Confucianized patrilineal ideal,’ Paterson reasons.
Family succession refers not only to the inheritance of the family property
but also to the inheritance of the rights to perform the family ritual for the
ancestors and supervise the family members, which means the inheritance of the

email of the author: sonbgu@skku.edu 9

 SON, Byunggiu

socioeconomic status of the family. When a family line was about to come to an
end, it was a very important and serious business to find a reliable heir to succeed
and maintain the family’s socioeconomic status. On the other hand, having many
sons in a family was also a problem. There were no worries about an heir, of
course, but it still posed the problem of having to determine who among the sons
would be recognized of his legitimacy and how to divide the family property
among them in such a way as not to degrade the socioeconomic status of each son.
The incomplete primogeniture, or the system of inheritance (sangsok ) where
the eldest son was granted a larger portion of property than his brothers, and the
adoption (ibyang ) were some of the many strategies for the succession of the
family line. However, the inheritance system in the late Choson has often been
understood as having strongly favored the elder son, probably because the
patrilineal descent groups which were formed following the family order of a clan
code were taken into account.
In parallel with the tendency of the eldest son taking the largest proportion
of inheritance in the late Chos on, however, it should also be noted that the partible
inheritance continued where the other children also inherited their share of
inheritance, although not as large as the share to the elder son.2 The partible
inheritance worked as a minimum fund by which the other descendants formed a
family of their own on a stable basis. On the other hand, it also could lead to the
demotion of the social status of the family members following the dispersion of the
financial means of the family. While the partible inheritance remained in place,
such possible socioeconomic crises of families produced a variety of family
strategies of the family succession.
Regarding the family succession and inheritance, a new research method
has already been proposed with individuals as a unit of observation in addition to
households.3 Historical demography has made an effort to trace the family history
by means of the demographic behaviors of individuals, such as births, marriages,
deaths, and creating a new family together with succession and adoption. This
paper intends to observe how the family succession was affected by the
characteristics of the marriages during the Choson Dynasty, especially by the aspects
of man’s marriages and adoptions as recorded in family genealogies.4 The observation

1 Mark A. Peterson, Korean Adoption and Inheritance: Case Studies in the Creation of a Classic
Confucian Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
2 For the inheritance and family, see Son Byung-giu, “Choson hugi sangsok kwa kajok hyongt’ae ui
pyonhwa” [Changes in the inheritance practice and family structure in the late Choson] Daedong munhwa
y on’gu 61 (2008). For the inheritance practice of the Tokugawa Japan, the established theory of
primogeniture has been challenged by the views that offer a variety of inheritance practice in the rural
society of the later Tokugawa era. See Hayami Akira, “EAP (The Eurasia Project on the Study of
Population and Family History) working paper,” http://www2.ipcku.kansai-u.ac.jp (2000).
3 Okada Aoi, “Keisho s ozoku” [Succession and inheritance] In EAP working paper (2000);
Hyami Akira, “Ibid.”
4 In Korean genealogies, adopted son is recorded as ‘kyeja’ ( , heir), and departed son is
recorded as ‘ch’ulgye’ ( ) or ‘ch’ulhu’ ( ).

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 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

from this perspective will put into question the validity of the idea of the so-called
“Confucianized patrilineal society.”5
To this end, this paper analyzes the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy Database,
which was compiled by the General Association of the Andong Kw on Clan in the
early 2000s.6 The analysis is made mainly for the descendants of Kw on K um-s ok
who have lived in the rural areas in Tansong, Kyongsang Province from the 15th
century, especially the many branches of the family line of his sons, Kwon Si-tuk
and Kwon Si-chun. Their legitimate descendants, now forming many families,
were positioned as high class in Tans ong. In the Kyongsang area, a large volume of
household registers (hoj ok ) are still preserved with many records to check
against the records of family genealogies (chokpo ). The household registers
make it possible to understand more specifically the movements of the Andong
Kwon families in Tansong.7 In addition to using as a basic data the genealogy
database, which encompasses the family genealogies of many branches of the
Andong Kwon clan ( ), this paper also referred to the Houshold Registers of
Tansong-hyon, Kyongsang Province to compare with specific personal information in
family genealogies.

1. Population Registered in the Andong Kw on Clan Genealogy Database

Kwon Kum-s ok had four sons. The first son entered into politics and left home to
serve at the central government; he never returned home. The second son died
young. The sons who stayed in Tansong, Kyongsang Province, and left descendants
were Kwon Si-tuk and Kwon Si-chun. They were first registered in the Andong Kwon
Clan Genealogy of 1654.8 Kwon Si-tuk is recorded as having been born in 1470 in a
genealogy of his sub-clan (p’abo ), compiled by his descendants, but the year of
birth of Kwon Si-chun and his descendants to his grandchildren’s generation is not
found in any p’abo.9 From a single family line, sub-clans were often formed for
those who stayed in an area for generations and the genealogies of the different
sub-clans contained different demographic information about their ancestors.
The Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy Database, drawn up in 2002, includes
information recorded in nationwide clan genealogies (taedongbo ) and
genealogies of many sub-clans or p’abo. More specifically, the Database is based on

5 Miyajima Hiroshi argues that the ethics of Neo-Confucianism well fit to small-sized cultivator
household, promote the uniformity in family structure and family economy. See his “Yugyo ui chemin sasang
kwa sonong sahoe ron” [Confucian idea on the people’s welfare, and treatise on small-sized cultivator
household] Kukhak yon’gu 14 (2009). It is still unclear, however, that his theory has a direct relation to
the principles of patrilineal descent group.
6 Angdong Kwon ssi taejonghoe [General Association of the Andong Kw on Clan]
(http://andongkwon.or.kr), Andong Kwon ssi chokpo deit’ o peisu [Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy Database]
(2002).
7 Daedong munhwa yon’guwon [Daedong Institute of Korean Studies] of Sungkyunkwan
University, Kyongsang-do Tansong-hyon hojok taejang chonsan deit’ o paisu [Household Registers of Tansong-
hyon, Kyongsang Province, Digitalized Database] (2006).
8 Andong Kwon ssi kabo po [Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy of 1654], preserved in the National
Library of Korea.
9 Andong Kwon ssi p’abo, Tonggyegong p’a [Genealogy of the Andong Kwon Clan Branch Line,
Tonggyegong Branch] (1936).

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 SON, Byunggiu

Taedongbo, from the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy of 1654 through the Andong Kwon
Clan Genealogy of 1907, and added information from many p’abo compiled by
small and large sub-clans and genealogies of family lineages (kagyebo ),
covering almost all records contained in genealogies of the Andong Kwon clan. Yet,
as it was made on the basis of existing genealogies, this database still has flaws
which those genealogies commonly have.

Table 1. Number and Rate of the Birth-Year Records of Men and Their Spouses
in Kwon Si-chun’s Family Line
Year of Late Early Late Early Late Early Late Early Late Early
Total
Birth 15th C 16th C 16th C 17th C 17th C 18th C 18th C 19th C 19th C 20th C
Man on Recorded 2 5 36 73 161 351 744 1,451 3,503 6,326
the Not
2 3 6 10 35 89 173 189 153 144 804
Paternal recorded
Side Total 2 5 11 46 108 250 524 933 1,604 3,647 7,130
Rate of the Birth
0 40 45 78 68 64 67 80 90 96 89
Year Records (%)

Wife of Recorded 1 5 12 34 65 204 727 2,163 3,211

Man on the Not
2 3 7 48 126 261 537 825 1,022 1,358 4,189
Paternal recorded
Side Total 2 3 8 53 138 295 602 1,029 1,749 3,521 7,400
Rate of the Birth
0 0 13 9 9 12 11 20 42 61 43
Year Records (%)

* Source: Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy Database, 2002, General Association of

the Andong Kwon Clan (the same hereafter)
* The years of birth of those who bear no birth record were inferred from their
parents and brothers with birth records. Those spouses of the men on the
paternal side who have no birth record were assumed to have the same birth
year of their husbands.

First of all, let us take a look at the records of birth from Kwon Si-chun
through his descendants who are estimated to have been born in the early 20th
century (Table 1). Nearly 90 percent of men on the paternal side of the Andong
Kwon clan have their birth-year record, while, comparably, only less than 50
percent of their wives do. For the women on the paternal side, or the daughters of
the Andong Kwon clan, the years of birth are not recorded and only the names of
their husbands are recorded. Towards the early 20th century, the number of those
whose birth years are recorded increases. The demographic information of the
genealogies, including the years of birth, is lopsided in favor of men on the
paternal side and more information is available towards the later times when
genealogies were compiled widely.
The Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy Database records a total of 9,680 men on
the paternal side of the clan who lived in Tans ong for a long time from the late
fifteenth to early twenties centuries (Table 2). Their wives are recorded in

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 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

approximately the same number. However, the number of the women on the
paternal side of the Andong Kwon clan is short of 6,000 during the same period.
The men on the paternal side and their wives account for 38 percent of the total
number of those registered in the database, whereas the women on the paternal
side account for only 23 percent. If it were a normal demographic statistics
covering all age groups, the total numbers of sons and daughters would have been
the same. The genealogies, however, registered daughters in relatively less number.

Table 2. Number of the Descendants of Kwon Si-t uk and Kwon Si-chun

Registered in the Genealogical Database
Late Early Late Early Late Early Late Early Late Early
15th C 16th C 16th C 17th C 17th C 18th C 18th C 19th C 19th C 20th C Total
Man on the
7 16 25 73 167 363 698 1,288 2,199 4,842 9,680
Paternal Side
Wives of the Men
6 11 22 78 191 417 789 1,437 2,349 4,355 9,656
on the Paternal Side
Women on the
3 19 54 108 230 329 592 1,244 3,358 5,937
Paternal Side
Total 13 30 66 205 466 780 1,487 2,725 4,548 9,197 19,336

An examination of the changes in the number of the recorded or assumed

birth years reveals that during the period from the seventeenth to nineteenth
centuries more entries were made for the wives than the men on the paternal side.
During the period, men on the patrilineal descent had often more than one wife.
The entries for women were fewer than those for men because the information on
spouses was not recorded before the 16th century and marriages were yet to be
registered after the 20th century. The number of the entries for women on the
paternal side was on the decline from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth
centuries but turned upward after the late 19th century. It is quite interesting to
notice that it is inversely proportional to the movement of the entries of the wives
of the men on the paternal side.

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 SON, Byunggiu

In the early genealogies prior to the 16th century, entries of wives were
absent, while the lineage of daughters was recorded in abundance, leading to
family lines of many surnames registered in one genealogy. After the 17th century,
genealogies began to be compiled by surname, reducing the lineage of daughters
and, instead, increasing records of wives.10 The data used in this paper was
prepared on the basis of post-17th century genealogies, but the changes in the
amount of information on women seem to foretell the transition from the early to
later genealogies. The fact that an increasingly large number of women on the
paternal side began to be registered in genealogies after the late 19th century can be
more of the result of an emphasis on the patrilineal descent than a return of the
genealogy compilation method to the pre-16th century.
Our observation on the entries from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries
will be made primarily on men on the paternal side. The relatively faithful
demographic records on the men in the patrilineal descent make it a useful starting
point for a study based on the demographic information in genealogies. The
genealogies were compiled for the purpose of proving the legitimacy of the
patrilineal succession of families and the marriage networks. As a result, those who
died young without any heir were seldom recorded in the genealogies, except for
some special cases where they made entries with notes of “Died Young” or “Died.” 11
Among the men from Kwon Si-chun’s family line, there are only 18 cases
whose years of birth and death are both known and who died before they became
19 years old. Five of them who died before the age of 14 and made into the
genealogies were all born after the 20th century. It is presumed that they died before
marriage but their records which were registered in genealogies before they became
adults survived through the repeated compilations of the genealogies. Those aged
16 to 18 were born after the early 18th century and the wives of them all were
recorded. With the exception of those who were born in the early 20th century, all
those without a legitimate son adopted a son. Those who were born in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and died before age of 19 are all recorded as
having got married. It seems that those who died before getting married had not
been registered in the genealogies until the 19th century.
However, not all those who had no legitimate son and failed in succeeding
their family line by means of a son adopted as an heir (kyeja ) were entirely
excluded from the registration in the genealogies. The ratios of those, among the
descendants of Kwon Si-tuk and Kwon Si-chun, who had no legitimate son by
period of birth, those who had no legitimate son and adopted a son, and those who
in the end failed in succeeding their family line, all against the total number of
men, are as follows:

10 Miyajima Hiroshi, “T oyobunka Kenkyusho shojono Chosen hanto zokufushiryo ni chuite”

(http://www.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~koreandb/miyajimajp.htm) [On the Choson chokpo collection of the
Center for East Asian Cultural Research, University of Tokyo] Ashita no Toyogaku 7 (2007).
11 Son Byung-giu, “Ingusajok ch’ukmyon eso pon hojok kwa chokpo ui charyojok songgyok”
[Characteristics of household registers and genealogies as source materials for historical demography]
Daedong munhwa yon’gu 46 (2004).

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 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

Table 3. Ratios of Those Without a Legitimate Son and Those With a Failed
Family Line Over Time
Late 15th C Late Early Late Early Late
Total
-Early 17th C 17th C 18th C 18th C 19th C 19th C
No. of Men on Paternal
119 166 350 655 1,284 2,201 4,775
Side (a)
No. of Those Who Had No
Legitimate Son (b)
22 46 88 188 322 495 1,161
Ratio of Those Who Had
No Legitimate Son (b/a, %) 18% 28% 25% 29% 25% 22% 24%

No. of Those Without

Legitimate Son Who Adopted 9 29 39 63 187 249 576
a Son (c)
Ratio of Their Adoption
41% 63% 44% 34% 58% 50% 50%
(c/b, %)
No. of Those Who Had a
13 17 49 125 135 246 585
Failed Family Line (d; b-c)
Ratio of the
Discontinuations of the 11% 10% 14% 19% 11% 11% 12%
Family Line (d/a, %)

* Those who are regarded as having been able to be recorded in genealogies by

a kyeja were excluded from the count.

The number of those who had no legitimate son varies according to

different times, but those who were born before the 19th century account for
approximately 24 percent in total. About 50 percent of them adopted a son to
succeed their family line, putting the ratio of those whose family lines died out at a
mere 12 percent. What should be noted in this context is the changes in the ratios
of failed family lines by different times. The ratios were increasing after the late
seventeenth through eighteenth centuries and recovered to a lower level in the 19th
century. As will be described later, it has something to do with people’s such efforts
to continue the family lines as men’s remarriage and adoption.
Prior to getting into a full-fledged analysis of men’s remarriage and
adoption, we need to keep several elements in mind regarding the Andong Kwon
Clan Genealogy Database. Above all, it is doubtful if, as the data suggests, there
were really so many of those before the 19th century who got married and did not
have any legitimate son. Given the probability that a family line would still have
failed even with a legitimate son if the son died before he got married, it is very
likely that those whose family line eventually died out were not all registered in the
genealogies. Those who had no legitimate son and had their family line died out
could probably have been registered in the genealogies through an adoption of a son.12
These probable omissions in the genealogies are hard to confirm.

12 Therefore, it is probable that higher rate of adoption led to higher rate of listing of legitimate
sons in genealogies. See Son Byung-giu, “Chokpo ui ingu kijae pomwi [Extent of listing in genealogies]
Komunso yon’gu 28 (2008). But, the rate is negligible here.

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 SON, Byunggiu

None the less, the Database has advantages that other databases do not
have. The advantages come from the unusual method of compiling the genealogies
by which many family lines which had been omitted before were included in the
Database to help increase the number of cases which serve the purpose of this
study. The Database did not differentiate between the legitimate and illegitimate
sons but, when a new family line made an entry, it specified when it was included
based on what genealogy.13 For this reason, this study excluded from the statistics
of legitimate sons those who were born before the 19th century and registered as
the progenitors of new family lines which newly entered into the Database based
on post-1950 genealogies, regardless of their legitimacy or illegitimacy.14

2. Men’s Remarriages and Their Trend

Among the legitimate sons (ch okcha ) of Kwon Si-tuk, only the third son Kwon
Kyu had legitimate sons. As a result, Kwon Kyu’s second son, Kwon Mun-cho,
succeeded his uncle as a kyeja. This was the first case of a kyeja among the
descendants of Kwon Si-tuk. Among the sons of Kwon Kyu, the third son Kwon
Mun-im had no legitimate son and took as a kyeja Kwon Hong (1564-1628), the
second son of Kwon Kyu’s fourth son Kwon Mun-on. This was the second kyeja in
Kwon Si-tuk’s family line. The first kyeja Kwon Mun-cho has no record about his
wife in the genealogies, but Kwon Hong, the second kyeja, was recorded as having
two wives.15 In the 1606 Tansong registers, he is recorded as having formed a
household with the second wife. Kwon Hong had three legitimate sons from the
two wives.
Kwon Tok-hyong (1653-1719) was born the second son of Kwon Tu-mang,
a fifth-generation descendant of Kwon Si-chun, and became the kyeja of his uncle
who had no legitimate son. This was the first kyeja in Kwon Si-chun’s family line,
which took place very late in comparison with Kwon Si-tuk’s. Kwon Tok-hyong
became a kyeja after he got married. He had three legal marriages during his
lifetime: His first wife died after leaving only a daughter, and his second wife died
after leaving a son. Perhaps feeling that only one legitimate son was not enough, he
got married for the third time but had to settle for only one more daughter from
his third wife. He lived in a social environment where it was strongly needed to
succeed one’s family line even through a kyeja from among legitimate descendants,
as exhibited by Kwon T ok-hyong. Himself the kyeja of his uncle and already
having a legitimate son, Kw on Tok-hyong made an extra effort to have more
legitimate sons as insurance.

13 The Database records “[given individual] is newly listed in 2002 according to kye p’abo,” with
no mention of legitimacy or illegitimacy. Such case is most probably illegitimate son, thus not included in
the statistics of legitimate sons.
14 In the post-1950 editions of genealogies, the number of branch originator as kyeja are as
follows; 3 cases for the 17th century, notably 59 cases for the 18th century, and 5 cases for the early 19th
century.
15 In the 1606 Tansong hojok, Kwon Sim, the second son of Kwon Mun-jo, records as his
maternal grand father a Kumsan Ha, The first son of Kwon Mun-jo does not appear in the hojok. Kwon
Hong, the kyeja of Kwon Mun-im (aged 53) married second a Songju Yi (aged 44). Their son does not
appear in the 1606 hojok.

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 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

The p’abo with the entry of Kwon Tok-hyong registers only his three wives.
Genealogies generally record a man, his spouse(s) of legal marriage(s), and his
legitimate child/children. Choson’s traditional ruling class of yangban ( ) stuck
to monogamy, and a second wife could be taken only after the first wife died.
Taking a concubine was possible while the legal wife lived, but the concubines
were not registered in genealogies. Some illegitimate children from the concubines
were registered in genealogies but, even when they were, only the concerned
people were recorded with a note of ‘illegitimate child’ (s ojanyo ). Their
descendants were not recorded. The legitimacy for the succession of a family line
was given only to a legitimate son from a legal wife, and only the legitimate
children in the ruling class were allowed to get married someone in the same class.
Genealogies in the Ming and Qing China did distinguish the legal wife from
the concubine, but they did not discriminate legitimate from illegitimate sons. Both
of them were entitled to succeed the legitimacy of their father.16 When an illegitimate son
was the only son, he still could succeed his father’s property and the right to
perform the ancestral rite. The genealogical tables in the Edo period of Japan had
the principle of primogeniture: when there was no son to succeed the family line, a
son from another family. Then again, the son was not necessarily adopted from a
family of patrilineal descent: A son-in-law practically the daughter could succeed
the rights to supervise the family.17 Comparing with the relatively open principle of
the family succession in China and Japan, Chos on’s principle, where the legal
marriage could take place only among people from the same high class and a
remarriage was allowed only after the first wife died, made it difficult to have a
patrilineal heir with legitimacy. Under these restrictions, a way of increasing the
likelihood of the successful family succession was to enhance the chance to have a
legitimate son by getting married again soon after the first wife died.
How many times a man gets legally married during his lifetime can be
deduced from the number of wives registered in the genealogies. Here, the rate of
men’s remarriages refers to the number of remarriages against the population of
men, or an average number of remarriages that a man had during his lifetime. The
calculation of the rates was made for both Kw on Si-tuk’s and Kwon Si-chun’s
family lines, and the cases where wives were not registered were excluded from the
calculation even then there was a legitimate son in the family. It is due to the
uncertainty of how many times those whose wives are omitted from the
genealogies got married in their lifetime, although those who were born before the
20th century are all presumed to have got married from the fact that they made an
entry into the genealogies.

16 Hence, in many Chinese genealogies, concubines were listed only when they had sons. Taga
Akigoro, “Chugoku sohu no kihonteki gainen to mondai teiki” [Basic concepts of Chinese genealogies
and problems] in Chugoku sohu no kenkyu 1[A study of Chinese genealogical 1] (Tokyo: Nihon gakujuchu
sinkokai, 1981).
17 Oguchi Yujiro, “Noson ni okeru josei s ozokunin” [Female inheritress in rural Japan] in Josei
no iru kinsei [Modern era for women] (Tokyo: Keis o shob o, 1995).

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 SON, Byunggiu

Table 4. Number of Men’s Remarriages and Changes in the Remarriage Rates

Late Early Late Early Late Early Late Early Late Early
15th C 16th C 16th C 17th C 17th C 18th C 18th C 19th C 19th C 20th C
No. of Men whose Wives
6 10 19 66 153 343 668 1,212 2,043 4,062
are Recorded
Total No. of Such Wives
6 11 22 78 190 417 789 1,437 2,350 4,355
(No. of Marriages)
Total No. of Remarriages 0 1 3 12 37 74 121 225 307 293
Rate of Men’s
0 10 16 18 24 22 18 19 15 7
Remarriage (%)

Among the men who were born in the 16th century, there are only
ignorable four cases of remarriages. However, the increasing tendency of
remarriages until it reached the peak for men who were born in the late 17th
century cannot be denied. If many men get remarried in their thirties, it can be
understood that the remarriages of those who were born in the late 17th century
took place from the late 17th to the early 18th centuries. The rate of men’s
remarriages reaches the peak during this period and declines until the 20th century.
Then, how effective was a man’s remarriage in securing a legitimate son?
The average numbers of legitimate sons whom a remarried man had indicate that
they are inversely proportional to the rates of men’s remarriage. Men’s remarriages
for the purpose of securing legitimate sons prove, therefore, not effective at all. The
average numbers of legitimate sons that men had during their lifetime were also
calculated by different times. The average numbers, therefore, represent the final
tallies of legitimate sons that those men had after their first and second marriages.
The calculations were made only for those men who were born in the late 19th
century and earlier, because the legitimate sons of those who were born in the early
20th century supposedly did not make the entries sufficiently.

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 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

Table 5. Average Numbers of Legitimate Sons of Single Marriage Couples and

Couples with Remarried Men
Early Late Early Late Early Late Early Late
16th C 16th C 17th C 17th C 18th C 18th C 19th C 19th C
No. of Couples (a) 6 16 54 120 280 559 1,009 1,764
Single Marriage No. of Legitimate
10 25 90 165 394 657 1,377 2,997
Couples Sons (b)
(b/a, %) 1.67 1.56 1.67 1.38 1.41 1.18 1.36 1.70
No. of Men (c) 1 3 12 33 63 109 203 279
No. of Wives (d) 2 6 24 70 137 230 427 586
Couples with No. of Legitimate Sons 2 8 28 73 87 176 363 677
Remarried Men (e)
(e/c, %) 2.00 2.67 2.33 2.21 1.38 1.61 1.79 2.43
(e/d, %) 1.00 1.33 1.17 1.04 0.64 0.77 0.85 1.16

Generally, of course, the remarried men had more legitimate sons from
more than one wife than the men in the single marriage had. However, after it was
at the zenith in the late 17th century, the rate of remarriage started to drop until, in
the end, the number of legitimate sons of those remarried men who were born in

19
 SON, Byunggiu

the early 18th century became about the same as that of their counterparts who did
not get remarried. After the late 18th century, the number of legitimate sons of the
remarried men began to climb up again but the trend of a falling rate of remarriage
did not turn around. The fall in the average number of legitimate sons was enough
to raise doubts about the presupposed effect of men’s remarriages on securing more
legitimate sons.
Presumably, the doubts over the effect of men’s remarriage already existed at
the time when the rate of remarriage reached a peak. In the late 17th century, the
average number of legitimate sons was lower not higher than earlier. Many
people probably experienced that a second or even third marriage did not always
guarantee extra legitimate sons. More importantly, however, having many
legitimate sons raised as much problem as a discontinuation of the family line. The
partible inheritance which was practiced at the time undermined the financial basis
of the families with a multiple of legitimate sons.18
The afore-mentioned remarriage of Kwon Tok-hyong contributed to
making the rate of remarriage of men from the Andong Kwon clan reach the peak
in the late 17th century. Furthermore, in addition to the legal wife, he had two
concubines. He took the first concubine while he was married to his first wife and
had an illegitimate son from her. It appears that he took the second concubine after
his third wife died, which means that the second concubine lived with Kwon for
almost 30 years until he died. Then, when his legal wife died, why did he not get
married to a legal wife and instead take a concubine when he was still no older
than 40 years old? He probably could not settle for only one legitimate son for the
succession of his family line but did not want his property dispersed among his
children. As a kyeja, he inherited his uncle’s property almost all alone. In a
situation where the property was also divided among the daughters and
illegitimate children, although not as much as the legitimate son, having more
legitimate sons was suppressed.
As illustrated above, Kwon Hong from Kwon Si-tuk’s family had three
legitimate sons from two wives, of whom the first had no legitimate son of his
own. Thus, for him, the second son named Kwon Tae-yu (1630-1703) of Kwon
Hong’s second son (who had been sent to Kwon Hong’s younger brother as the
kyeja) succeeded Kwon Hong’s first son as the kyeja. There exists the written
document of inheritance by which Kwon Tae-yu handed over his property to his
children.19 According to the document, Kwon distributed his property to the three
legitimate sons at the same proportion, adding one fifth of the share of a legitimate
son to the eldest son for the ancestral ritual. He left his daughters with a half of the

18 Miyajima Hiroshi, “Zaichi yangbans o no keizai kihan,” [Economic base of local yangban in
Korea] in Yangban (Tokyo: Chuo koron sha, 1995).
19 Daedong munhwa yon’guwon, “Nobi chondap punkum mungi” [Document on dividing
slaves and fields] (3rd month 24th day, 1690) in Kyongsang-do Tans ong-hyon sahoe charyojip [Societal
materials of Tansong County, Kyongsang Province] (2003). For an analysis of this document, see Son
Byung-giu, “17-18 segi hojok taejang ui sanobi kijae silt’ae: Kyongsang-do Tansong-hyon Kwon Tae-yu
ka nobi nul chungsim uro” [Listing of slaves in the household registers of the 17th and 18th centuries: the
slaves of Kwon Tae-yu’s household, Tansong County, Kyongsang Province] Komunso yon’gu 24 (2004).

20
 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

share of a legitimate son and his illegitimate children with one fourth to eighth of
the share of a legitimate son. Eventually, the eldest son who inherited the largest
portion ended up possessing only about one fourth of his parents’ property.
The practice of living with a concubine for the rest of one’s life, not taking
another wife through a legal wedding, for many reasons including the inheritance
of the property, was not limited to this period. In fact, it became more common
during the 18th and 19th century.

3. Aspects of Adoption
In conjunction with the effect of men’s remarriage on having a legitimate son, now
let us pay attention to its effect on the fertility rates. What is noticeable in the
above table is that while the rate of remarriage of men who were born in the late
17th century steadily fell until the 20th century after it reached the peak, the average
number of legitimate sons per woman which can be described as the ‘total fertility
rate’ calculated for the legitimate sons who survived continued to drop until the
18th century and recovered to the level of the 17th century in the 19th century.
The first consideration to make is the possibility that men’s remarriage can
exert an effect on the fall of the fertility rates. As pointed out before, the average
number of legitimate sons per remarried man is generally higher than that of the
couples of the single marriage. Men’s remarriage brings about an increase in the
number of population within the family and the patrilineal group. Besides, men’s
remarriage reduces the number of single women in the high class, ultimately
helping as many of them to get married and consequently contributing to an
increase in the overall population in society. The number of legitimate sons per
woman remained high until the late 17th century when the rate of men’s remarriage
was high.
However, the average number of legitimate sons from the wives of the
remarried men is by far lower than that of the single marriage couples, and both
statistics were tending downwards until the 18th century. The rise in the fertility
rate resulted from the marriage of almost all women gradually lost its effect. As a
necessary consequence, remarriage takes place as a result of the previous wife’s
death, which, in turn, translates into a shorter period when a woman is capable of
pregnancy. The primary cause of the relative low fertility rate was that women did
not live long enough until the end of the period in which they were capable of
pregnancy. Other causes include the fact that remarriage in the high class is
allowed only to men and not women.
Together with the stratification within the Andong Kwon clan, which
belonged to the high class, men’s remarriage also foretold an overall degradation of
the social status of the clan members. As women in the high class were taken as
second wives, some high class men were deprived of a chance to get married to a
woman of their class and left with the alternative of remaining single or getting
married to a woman of a lower class. This situation helped undermine the
stabilization of the high class’ status. Being forced to get married to a woman of a
lower class, men in the high class experienced a degradation of their status. More
importantly, the increase in the number of children in high class families following

21
 SON, Byunggiu

men’s remarriage led to the dispersion of the family properties and the fall of their
financial status as a consequence of the partible inheritance. The downgrade in the
status and financial conditions might have had an effect on the decrease in the
fertility rates within the families. The steady decline in the fertility rates until the
18th century even after the rates of men’s remarriage were at its peak might have
been a byproduct of these situations combined.
The second point to consider is the fact that, conversely, the effects of the
continued reduction in the rates of men’s remarriage now led to a recovery of the
fertility rates. How could we understand the trend that the average number of
legitimate sons from the wives of the men who were born in the early 18th century
hit the record low before starting to steadily rise?
The high rates of men’s remarriage not only failed in effectively preventing
the discontinuation of family succession, it also caused the degradation of the
social status and financial conditions of many children. The rates of remarriage
steadily dropped while there still were a number of men’s remarriage probably
because the recognition of the unwanted situation was widely shared. Now there
needed a dramatic turnabout in the way of family succession. The rise in the
average number of legitimate sons after the late 18th century was attributable to
these changes in the way of family succession which took place in the wake of the
fall in the rates of men’s remarriage.
The answers to the decline in the rates of men’s remarriage can be found in
the rise in the rates of adoption and the primogeniture. The taking of a kyeja (i.e.,
practice of adoption, iphu ) was a family strategy which aimed to solve the
problems of the feared discontinuation of the family line and the likely securing of
too many legitimate sons all at a time. The succession of the family line meant the
succession of the status and the inheritance of property with a view to maintaining
them at the same or hopefully a higher level. The primogeniture was an attempt to
curb the dispersion of the financial means of the family as much as possible so that
even the eldest son alone can maintain the social status as before.

Table 6. Changes in the Rate of Adoption

Early 16th C Late Early Late Early Late Early
- Early 17th C 17th C 18th C 18th C 19th C 19th C 20th C
No. of kyeja (a) 6 12 28 51 106 239 276
No. of Men (b) 114 165 361 665 1263 2198 4842
Rate of Adoption (a/b, %) 5.3 7.3 7.8 7.7 8.4 10.9 5.7

An examination of the various aspects involving kyeja by the times when

they were born confirms that the rates of adopted heirs tended to gradually
increase until the late 19th century in terms of both the sheer number and as share
in the male population. Concerning the descendants of Kwon Si-tuk and Kwon Si-
chun, the cases of kyeja started to appear with regard to those men who were born
in the early 16th century. Among the total of 114 men, including those who were

22
 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

born in the early 17th century, only six were kyeja. Those kyeja account for less
than 6% of the total number of men. The number of adopted heirs, however,
started to rise beginning with those men who were born in the late 17th century
and later and reached the top among those who were born in the late 19th century.
However, there are not many cases of adopted heirs registered in the genealogies
among those who were born in the early 20th century probably because many of
the adopted heirs did not make entries.
With regard to the relations between the rates of men’s remarriage and the
rates of adoption, the following characteristics can be identified according to the
different periods when they were born; First, when the rates of men’s remarriages
reached the peak in the late 17th century, the rates of adoption already began to rise.
It was a time when people made great efforts to have legitimate sons by means of
men’s remarriages but started to feel that it was not an entirely easy goal to achieve.
Under these circumstances, the necessity was strongly felt to succeed the family
line even through a kyeja. At the time, the tendency of inheritance was also
undergoing change. In a break from the convention of sharing inheritance equally
among the children regardless of their sex, the practice of granting inheritance in
favor of sons over daughters was implemented with additional differentiation
between legitimate and illegitimate children. Faced with the situation in which
their financial means was dispersed and undermined due to the partible
inheritance, the high class was attempting to arrest the development of such a
situation. The problem of favorable inheritance for the eldest son was yet to be
raised by the time.
Second, in the subsequent 18th century, as the fall in the rates of men’s
remarriages suggests, there was less effort to have legitimate sons while the
tendency of taking a kyeja continued, although the rates of adoption did not
continue to increase any more but stood still for some time. It is interpreted that
the necessity for family succession was not felt any less but the adoption was not
taking place much easily. Some adoptions were made from among distant kindred
even when candidates for adoption were available among closer kindred.20 If we are
reminded that the average number of legitimate sons was at the lowest in the 18th
century, we can assume that there was a deficiency in the candidates for kyeja
during this period and finding an appropriate candidate must have been very hard.
As observed before, the many cases of not taking a kyeja during this period even
when there was no legitimate son had something to do with this situation.
Third, it can be pointed out that in the 19th century, the rates of men’s
remarriage continued to fall, while the rates of adoption rose sharply. In addition,
the contradicting phenomena of the rates of men’s remarriage and adoption
assumably started to take effect after the late 18th century, resulting in the rise in
the average number of legitimate sons.
A kyeja could inherit the social status and financial means of their

20 Kwon Naehyon, “Choson hugi ibyang ui sijom kwa pomwi e taehan punsok” [An analysis on
the timing and extent of adoption in the late Choson] Daedong munhwa yon’gu 62 (2008).

23
 SON, Byunggiu

stepfathers almost all alone and the other brothers who were living in their parents’
home could have a larger allocation of the inheritance. Sometimes, mismanagement of
the household economy, coupled with smaller allocations of the inheritance, could
lead to the degradation in the social status of those involved, but the inheritance
strategy helped them maintain the legitimacy of their social status by distributing
the financial resources among the kindred.
The situation lasted where generally the financial means of the high class
was dispersed and their financial conditions were deteriorating,21 continuing the
downward tendency of their social status even within the high class. The social
and economic gap was now narrowed between the financially successful
illegitimate children and their descendants who had been denied of the legitimacy
in the family succession and discriminated even within the high class, and the
legitimate children and their descendants. The leveling of the social status and
financial means to some degree was in the same direction as the stabilization of
financial conditions of a great number of families. The Andong Kwon clan was not
an exception in experiencing the even distribution of its financial means among
many families in the clan through the adoption of heirs. The conditions which
allowed both men and women to get married without difficulties, and the financial
stability for so many families must have been the primary factors in increasing the
fertility rates.
A closer look at the extent of adoption and its trend reveals the changes in
the way of taking a kyeja in addition to its diverse aspects. Adoptions were limited
to the legitimate sons of patrilineal descent. It was because they wanted to share
the legitimacy of the social status and financial conditions of their family only
among themselves. The extent of adoption can be defined in terms of the distance
of a blood relationship between one’s biological father and the stepfather. The table
below shows the number of the cases of adopted heirs according to how many
generations the heir is away from the common ancestor of the two families
involved in the adoption. Because the exact times of adoption is not known, the
trend has been traced by the different periods when the adopted heirs were born:

Table 7. Trend in Adoption Cases According to the Extent of Adoption

Common Ancestor of the Biological Early Late Early Late Early Late Early Late Early
Father and the Stepfather 16th C 16th C 17th C 17th C 18th C 18th C 19th C 19th C 20th C
2 generations away (grandfather) 1 2 7 11 21 46 119 162
3 generations away (great grandfather) 1 1 2 5 11 26 42 38
4 generations away
1 3 5 3 15 29
(great-great-grandfather)
5 generations away 2 1 3 4 9 2
6 generations away 1 3 2 2 6 7
7 generations away 3 5 7 7 1
8 generations away 2 5 3

21 As shown in Table 3, among the men without legitimate sons, the rates of adoption in the first
and second half of the 18th century are as lows as 44 percent and 34 percent.

24
 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

9 generations away 1 2 2
10 generations away 1 2 8 1
11 generations away 1 1 4 3
12 generations away 1
13 generations away 1
14 generations away 1
15 generations away 1 2
16 generations away 1
Grandson Adopted
1 5 17
as the Heir (‘kyeson’)
Not Known 2 2 11 13 8
Total No. of kyeja 6 12 28 51 106 239 276
Within the Extent
of Four Generations 6 9 19 37 76 181 246
(Great-Great-Grandfather)
Proportion (%) 100 75 68 73 72 76 89

* The common ancestors of the biological father and the stepfather were
divided by the number of generations calculated from the kyeja.
* “Within the Extent of Four Generations” refers to the cases in which an heir
is adopted from among the descendants with the great-great-grandfather as the
common ancestor. In here, cases of ‘kyeson,’ or grandson adopted as the heir,
were included.

Until the early 17th century, the kyeja in Kwon Si-tuk’s and Kwon Si-chun’s
families were decided upon within the extent in which the common ancestor of
the biological father and the stepfather of the heir was no farther than the great-
great-grandfather (kojo ) of the heir in the distance of the blood relationship.
The descendants who have the great-great-grandfather as the common ancestor are
all kindred of third cousins or closer in the kinship system where the blood
relationship is counted in terms of the degree of consanguinity (ch’onsu ). The
so-called ‘kindred of third cousins or closer with the same great-great-grand father’
(tonggojo p’alch’on ) could have lived at the same period of time and
lived and manage the household together as one family.22 Otherwise, they still
could have lived in close relationships. It is completely understandable that the
family succession and the distribution of the financial means are implemented
within themselves.
However, beginning in the late 17th century, kyeja were decided upon
outside the afore-mentioned extent. And afterwards, the extent got even wider and
wider over time. It implies that the extent of kindred widened to that extent the
extent where, as a family, the members could hand down the social status of the
family to the next generation and share its financial means among themselves by

22 So the kindred of ‘tonggojo p’alch’on’ were called ‘ilga’ ( , same family), which also
sometimes referred to the members of the same surname and same ancestral seat group in its broadest sense.

25
 SON, Byunggiu

adopting an heir. However, although the extent was widening, the majority of the
heirs were still adopted from within a narrower extent of sub-clans, except some
examples where the origin of the kyeja was not clearly stated.
In this context, the “sub-clan” refers to the patrilineal group of kindred
(munjung, ), but in reality it varied in form to some degree. The common
ancestor of the Andong Kw ons who have lived in Tans ong for a long time is Kwon
Kom-sok. His descendants perform a ritual jointly in his memory as the originator
of their sub-clan. However, other sub-clans, originating from ancestors of later
generations than Kwon Kom-s ok, also exist with different munjung. While there is
the Sajikkong (referring to Kwon Si-tuk) Sub-clan with Kwon Si-tuk as its
originator, there separately exists the Anbundang (referring to Kwon Kyu) with Kwon
Si-tuk’s third son Kwon Kyu as its originator. With respect to the descendants of
Kwon Si-chun, a sub-clan was formed with a fourth generation son from Kw on Si-
chun as its originator.23
In Tansong, there are more than five major sub-clans of Kwon Kom-s ok’s
descendants. What is noticeable about them is that with the exception of Kwon
Kyu (born in 1496), most originators of the sub-clans were born in the late 16th
century. In the late 17th century when kyeja started to be adopted outside the
extent of the descendants from the same great-great-grandfather, members of sub-
clans were counted as descendants of the same great-great-grandfather. In this
sense, it is hard to regard that what was to be known as ‘sub-clans’ in later days
were formed during this period. The idea of munjung which is based on sub-clans
should be thought to have been formed much later.
What is interesting is that cross-sub-clan adoptions were frequently made
even before a branch of a family was formed. The expanding extent of adoption
probably prompted the recognition of the idea of a branch family. From this
viewpoint, it draws our attention that the adoptions were being polarized after the
late 18th century. The extent of adoption was increasing on the one hand, while,
conversely, there was a stronger tendency to find a kyeja from among close
relatives of the tonggojo p’alch’on ( ) on the other hand.
From the late the 17th through the 18th century, the extent of adoption was
increasing, leaving with fewer cases of adoption from among the descendants with
the same great-great-grandfather. At the time, it was presumably not easy to find
candidates of adoption from among close relatives due to the relatively small
number of legitimate sons per man. After the late 18th century, however, the cases
of adoption from among the descendants with the same great-great-grandfather
were increasing again amidst the continued expansion of the extent of adoption.
The extent of kindred, in which the family succession and the distribution of
property were allowed through the medium of a kyeja, were being increasingly
limited to closer kindred.

23 The four branch (or sub-clan) included the Tonggyegong p’a as its originator Kwon To (born
in 1575), the second son of Kwon Si-chun’s grandson (i.e., Kwon Se-ch’un); the Tongsangong p’a as its
originator Kwon Kug-nyang (born in 1584); the Mugonggong p’a as its originator Kwon Chip (born in
1569), the first son of Kwon Se-in (i.e., another grandson of Kwon Si-chun; the Sangamgong p’a as its
originator Kwon Chun (born 1579), the third son of Kwon Se-in.

26
 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

Adoptions showed different aspects after the 19th century when the rates of
adoption sharply increased. One of the aspects was that as efforts were made to
prevent the discontinuation of one family line, the family which provided a kyeja
sometimes faced with the crisis of the discontinuation of its own family line. Such
a situation took place when, for example, after providing a son for adoption, the
only remaining son in the family died before having an heir of his own and no
more legitimate son was born contrary to the expectation of having more of them.
In this case, solutions were often that one of the sons of the kyeja was sent back, or
readopted, to the kyeja’s original family to succeed its lineage or the kyeja was
decided to succeed the lineage of the two families and perform the ancestral rites
for both families (yangga pongsam ).24 The readoption was counted as
another adoption, and in this case, the readopted son was actually back to his own
home although on the surface he comes from distance in the range of adoption.
Another aspect of adoption which was produced by the same cause was the
grandson adopted as the heir (kyeson, ) who was directly adopted to the family
of the grandfather. This case took place especially when a son of a kyeja was
adopted back to the adoptee’s home which had no heir. A biological grandson in a
blood relation, he was a kyeson in form. Such cases appeared in the 19th century
and they were quite common in the early 20th century.
This aspect of adoption attests to the fact that a family’s intention to
distribute the family property among those patrilineal relatives who are as close to
the family as possible in the blood ties. As the eldest son almost monopolized the
inheritance, the rest of the brothers often found themselves under a dire financial
situation. Now the environment was created where most of them could be saved
from such a quandary through adoption. Under the circumstances where the
continued practice of the partible inheritance were undermining the financial basis
and degrading the social status of a family, adoption was a family strategy devised
to secure the stability of the household economy. The recovery of the fertility rates
in the 19th century must probably have been possible on the basis of the formation
of the families with stable financial conditions. Still, the extent of the family in
which the financial means was shared and distributed through adoption was
limited to very close relatives.

Conclusion
Due to the insufficient demographic information in the genealogies, this paper has
not been able to present specific demographic indices comparable with data on
other areas in East Asia. However, it does identify the relationship between men’s
remarriage to have a legitimate son and the adoption to succeed a family line
which was about to come to an end and the interconnectedness between the
contradicting phenomena involving them and inheritance. This paper also
proposes a hypothesis on the effects of men’s remarriage and adoption on the
fertility rates and the following changes in the rates.

24 In Kwon Si-chun’s line, such events count 2 in the first half of the 18th century, and 3 in the
20th century.

27
 SON, Byunggiu

The rates of men’s remarriage reached a peak in the late 17th century but it
gradually fell afterwards. Men’s remarriage was no longer considered as an effective
means of having a legitimate son. On the other hand, having too many legitimate
sons could cause a risk of degrading the family’s financial strength and social
status. Although daughters’ share of inheritance drastically dropped in the late 17th
century, it was not enough to control the risk.
The rates of adoption increased beginning in the late 17th century and
soared in the 19th century. People were giving up on their efforts to have a
legitimate son and instead making an attempt to maintain the family’s social status
and financial means through a kyeja. As the only son, the adopted heir could
inherit the family’s property all alone and the rest of his family members at his
original home could control the dispersion of the family’s financial resources
caused by the continued practice of the partible inheritance. Especially under the
situation where the social status and financial strength of the high class was getting
weaker in the 19th century, the distribution of property through adoption helped
stabilize the household economy. The frequent adoptions increased the number of
those who inherited the family property as the only son, preventing the weakening
of the family financial strength. Families with a lot of legitimate sons responded
with the expected destabilization of the family’s financial conditions by increasing
the eldest son’s share of inheritance.
The conflicting progress of the decline in the rates of men’s remarriage and
the rise in the rates of adoption had presumably an effect on the changes in the
fertility rates. Together with the restrictions on women’s remarriage, high class
men’s remarriage also helped repress the rise of the fertility rates. The fertility rates
started to fall in the late 17th century when the rates of men’s remarriage reached
the highest, and recorded the lowest levels in the 18th century. It is viewed that the
falling rates of men’s remarriage could not turn around the trend of the declining
fertility rates. In the 19th century, however, the fertility rates may have been recovered
thanks to the sharply increasing rates of adoption and the stabilization of the
household economy.
Finally, some questions need to be raised over the supposed unity of
munjung. Practically, it is quite difficult to measure the range in which the family
succession and the distribution of the family property was allowed by the extent of
adoption. In this respect, both the centrifugal and the centripetal forces were at
work in the opposite directions: The extent of adoption was expanding to include
a wider munjung on the one hand and shrinking toward the tonggojop’alch’on on
the other hand. The selection of a kyeja may have been affected by conflicting
interests among the close kindred, which must have varied depending on the
different perception on the clan. The supposed perception on munjung can be more
abstract than generally argued for. Perhaps we must understand munjung based on
the flexible relationship which works in both directions in the concentric circles
composed of individuals, families, tonggojop’alch’on, small munjung, and large
munjung.

28
 The Effects of Man’s Remarriage and Adoption on Family Succession
in the 17th to the 19th Century Rural Korea: Based on the Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy

GLOSSARY

Angdong Kwon ssi taejonghoe kyeja

kyeson
Andong Kwon ssi kabo po kyesung (keisho)
Kyongsang-do Tans ong-hy on hojok
chokcha taejang
chokpo Ming and Qing
ch’onsu munjung
ch’ulgye p’a
ch’ulhu p’abo
Edo sangsok (sozoku)
hojok sojanyo
ibyang taedongbo
ilga tonggojo p’alch’on
iphu yangban
kagyebo yangga pongsa
kojo

REFENENCES

Primary Sources
Andong Kwon ssi kabo po . 1654. [Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy of
1654], preserved in the National Library of Korea.
Andong Kwon ssi p’abo, Tonggyegong p’a . 1936. [Andong Kwon
Clan Branch Line Genealogy, Tonggyegong Branch].
Angdong Kwon ssi taejonghoe [General Association of the
Andong Kwon Clan]
(http://andongkwon.or.kr). 2002. Andong Kwon ssi chokpo deit’ o peisu
[Andong Kwon Clan Genealogy Database].
Daedong munhwa y on’guwon . 2003. “Nobi chondap punkum
mungi” ( ) [Document on
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