Korea Lecture Series – Doubly Bound: the Chosôn Legal Code and Slave Women

Korea Lecture Series -- Doubly Bound: the Chosôn Legal Code and Slave Women

Milan Hejtmanek - Assistant Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania

Monday, February 19, 2007 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Room 217A, Hall of Graduate Studies (HGS) See map
320 York Street
New Haven, CT 6511

Hereditary slavery, both private and public, was central to the economy of Chosôn Korea prior to the nineteenth century, and the members of the slave, or nobi, class were subject to a host of special laws regarding sales, inheritance of offspring, recapture, and retribution against masters, among others. This body of laws was developed outside the orthodox canon of laws inherited from China, which had few direct parallels. Drawing upon legal case books, contemporary diaries, and central government records, this talk will examine the legal plight of female slaves, who were not only subject to the general corpus of slave law, but also faced special strictures due to their power to reproduce property for their masters.

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Korea