There were three classes in the society of Chosun Korea (1392-1910): yangban (nobles), yangmin (commoners), and nobi (slaves).

The wealth of the yangban class was comprised of land and nobis; therefore, the nobi class was the basis of yangban society.  There are seven ways of enslaving: (1) heredity, (2) penal, (3) debt, (4) selling children, usually by parents, (5) self-sale, (6) child abandonment, and (7) prisoners of war.  

A yangmin couple bow to a yangban on donkey-back with his two nobis. Genre painting by Korean painter Deuk-sin Kim (1754-1822).        

The Law of Enslaving Starving Children did not exist in the early Chosun dynasty (1392-1910), as the Grand Code for State Administration (Gyeongguk daejeon) promulgated in 1485 doesn’t include it.[1] It seems that it was legislated in the late Chosun period.  The Law of Enslaving Starving Children had been practiced as a special royal order during the reign of King Injo (1623-1649), and it was finally legislated under the reign of King Young-jo (1724-1776).

The Grand Code for State Administration (Gyeongguk daejeong) of 1485.

According to this law, the age limit to adopt a hungry child was prior to age three during a normal period, but in a period of great famine it could be extended to eight, nine, or even fifteen years old. The Government Office of Relief called Jinhulchung (賑恤廳) was the organization in charge of enforcement.  The tasks of the Government Office of Relief were to lend crops to starving people, to distribute porridge to them, and to lend rolls of hemp cloth as shrouds for those who died of disease and starvation.  In the late Chosun period, however, it became the main institution to reproduce nobis through the Law of Enslaving Hungry Children in question. Therefore, the Government Office of Relief (賑恤廳) was the lifeblood of yangban society, which was tottering due to the great flight of nobis. Over half of nobis were on the run!

Of the four sources that follow, the first two are drawn from the Testimony of Proprietors, the collection of testimonies of people directly involved in trials related to the Law of Enslaving Starving Children. The third source is an image of a contract in which a woman sells her daughter as a nobi. The fourth source is scene from a recent Korean historical drama illustrating the humiliations of nobi status.


[1] The Gyeongguk daejeon is a complete code of law that comprises every law, act, custom, and ordinance released from the late Koryo Dynasty to the early Chosun Dynasty. It had been the basis for Chosun Dynasty politics for over 500 years. Gyeongguk daejeon was promulgated in 1485, the 16th year of King Seongjong’s reign, after the final edition was codified based on the first complete code of laws.

Sources 1 and 2: Testimony of Proprietors (財主招辭)

Translated from the Korean by Kim Bok-rae. Published in Suk-jong Jung, Research on the Social Upheavals in the late Chosun Period (Ilchokak, 1983), 182. This translation CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

辛亥分遺棄兒收養 呈于賑恤廳 啓下受立案  In 1671 a neglected girl aged 12 was adopted.  Thus, the government office of relief draws up a document on her.

甲子年 三寸叔姪間 In the 10th year of King Sukjong in 1684, it was transacted between uncle and niece in the Testimony of Proprietors.[1]


[1] Through these two documents in Chinese characters, we can recognize that the person concerned was bought by her uncle when she was 25 years old in 1684. When she was a young girl, she lived “freely” under the parental roof.  At age 25, she was degraded to the nobi (slave) class.

Source 3: A Nobi Document

Contributed by Kim Bok-rae. This contribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

A nobi document in which Mrs. Jo sold her ten-year-old daughter called Oki for 20 nyangs (an old Korean monetary unit). Because Mrs. Jo was unable to write, she used her hand as a signature. This was common in nobi documents.
A nobi document in which Mrs. Jo sold her ten-year-old daughter called Oki for 20 nyangs (an old Korean monetary unit). Because Mrs. Jo was unable to write, she used her hand as a signature. This was common in nobi documents. Image and explanation contributed by Kim Bok-rae.

Source 4: Humiliations of Nobi Status

Contributed by Kim Bok-rae. This contribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28dto3k6KVc

This video from a Korean fictional TV soap opera (Jang Yeong-sil, 2016) is not directly related to the historical text of the Law of Enslaving Starving Children, but it shows well the miserable status of nobi in the Chosun era. The main character of the show, Jang Yeong-sil (장영실 in Korean; 蔣英實 in Chinese) (1390-1442), was a Korean engineer, scientist, and inventor during the Chosun Dynasty (1392–1897). Although Jang was born as a public nobi, King Sejong’s (r. 1418–1450) new policy of breaking social class barriers placed on the national civil service allowed Jang to work at the royal palace. Jang’s inventions, such as the cheugugi (the rain gauge) and the water gauge, highlight the technological advancements of the Chosun Dynasty.

Discussion Questions

  1. Consider the contradictory relationship between the state (the Chosun Dynasty) and the nobi system through the Law of Enslaving Starving Children.
  2. Consider modes of enslavement, i.e. nobization. There are no nobi without a nobi system. Nobization is the basic process of maintaining or perpetuating the nobi system by performing the (informal institutional) function of supplying nobis. Modes of nobization can be divided into two categories: (1) the nobization of non-nobis (commoners) and (2) hereditary nobi status passed down through generations.  The Law of Enslaving Starving Children falls into the former category of nobization.  We cannot generalize the practice of this inhumane law, but ‘poverty’ was, and still is, one of the main reasons for the persistence of nobi system, even after its abolition in 1886. Consider the patriarchal and non-egalitarian relationship between parents (exercising quasi-life-or-death authority over their children) and children in a pre-modern society based on a rigid social status system.    

Related Primary Sources

Related Secondary Sources

  • Chi, Sung-jong. A Study of the Nobi (奴婢) in the 15-16th Century Korea. Ilchokak, 1995. [in Korean]
  • Kim, Bok-rae. “Nobi: A Korean System of Slavery.” In The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, ed. Gwyn Campbell, 153-165. London: Frank Cass, 2004.

Themes

Children, Images, Law, Property, Social Death, Trade