著者

吉川 美華

雑誌

東洋文化研究 (ISSN:13449850)

巻号頁・発行日

no.11, pp.157-178, 2009-03-31

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This paper will try to elucidate the major impact that the family registration law had on Korean society by examining how Japan introduced and revised the law. As part of its colonial rule of the Korean peninsula, Japan enacted this law in 1909 to grasp information on the Korean residents so that it could carry out the policing of the colony more effectively. The law was revised in 1915. Japan’s political intention behind the law will also be investigated. To strengthen its ability to maintain order in Korea without causing a strong local backlash, Japan incorporated many aspects of the colony’s indigenous customs into the law. Yet when it was amended six years later, other elements of the traditional Korean traits that afe characterized by those kin-centered values-which disdain or even exclude people who are not related by blood-were included to a considerable degree. As a result, these custom-which until then I(oreans had not necessarily been very conscious of-came to be clearly recognized by them as‘‘original”ones. After it gained independence from Japan, Korea further developed this notion of kindred as a unique national characteristic. Consequently, Japan’s intervention during the colonial period became aturning point for the shaping of a modern Korean social institution: enactment and revision of the family registration law played a key role in inducing the Korean nation to choose a particular type of family system which may otherwise well have taken many different forms.