A Study Of Korea 's Family Ethics

The Chosen Dynasty witnessed formation, development and flourish of the ancient Korean family ethics novels. A large number of family ethics novels have emerged during this period. With the progress of the society and urban economy, family ethics novels won the favor of the general public with its realistic description of customs, social conditions and people’s lifestyle at that time. The reason that family ethics novels can outshine the rest in the creation of novels during the Chosen Dynasty is highly because of political system and economic conditions of the society as well as ideological and cultural background at that time.It flourished especially in the period of Chosen Dynasty, when feudal ruling class, in order to maintain its rule, intended to achieve their purpose of preaching the traditional ethical concepts of Confucianism, like "Loyalty, Benevolence, Filialness and Justice" and "Advise evil, Reward good", etc. All the reasons above provided the proper conditions for the development of family ethics novels.Family ethics novels in the period of Chosen Dynasty have distinctive stages and each developing stage owns a clear theme in each stage of the development. Tale of Mr. Lee Peep over the Wall, which is a part of the short story Jin Ao Xin Hua written by Jin Shixi, is the best representative of the early family ethics novels. This work mainly focuses on the positive theme which is about young men and women’s breaking the family boundaries and pursuing freedom of love. The representatives of mid-term family ethics novels are Tale of Hong Jitong by Xu Jun, Xie’s Journey to the South and Jiu Yun Meng by Jin Wanzhong and Zhao Shengqi’s Zhang ShanGan Yi Lu, etc. The theme of novels in this period is more inclined to reflect social reality. The representatives of the late family ethics novels are The Sad Song of Cai feng, A Tale of Two Sisters, Tale of Kongju and Panju, Tale of Chunxiang, Tale of Shenqing and Tale of Xingfu, etc. These novels show the examination and reflection of the traditional ethics of Chosen Dynasty, which has a profound moral significance. By the comprehensive review of the family ethics novels in Chosen Dynasty, we found that the theme during the early stage has a tendency of embedding moral codes in the story, the middle stage is more inclined to criticizing political situation and the late puts emphasis on practical significance.Family ethics which are shown in the family ethics novel during the Chosen Dynasty are ethics between husband and wife, father and son (father and daughter & mother and son), fraternal ethics and ethics among wife and concubines, etc. Deeply influenced by the Confucianism of China, Korea attached great importance to the ethics between husband and wife in the family ethics and regarded it as the most important ethic in "Three Cardinal Guides", and also promoted the ethics of "Wife Should Follow Husband Opinion" between husband and wife. "Loving Father, Faithful Son" is the core content of the ethics of father and son; "Friendliness and Respect between Brothers" is advocated by the Confucian fraternal ethics; "Virtuous wife, Respectful Concubine" is the requirements of Confucian concept of wives ethics. During the Chosen Dynasty, family ethics novels also showed the life-long love ethics "Pure, Deep, Faithful, Sincere" in the novels, which shown in Tale of Mr. Lee Peep over the Wall, Tale of Chun Xiang and The Sad Song of Caifeng.The characters are the core and soul of the family ethics novels. In the narrative, Characters in the narrative plays an important role in promoting the development of plot. Especially the images of characters in the family ethics novels and the mirror of the secular society, enable us to take a peek at the ideas and behavior norms, customs and habits of people at that time. In the family ethics novels of Chosen Dynasty, it mainly created four types of characters, including the images of feudal parents, husband, wives and concubines, sons and daughters. Due to influence by the rules of etiquette thought of Confucianism "Men are Superior to Women" and "Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues", in these novels, we see images of strict father with etiquette and the images of helpless kind mother and the evil stepmother whose image is rebellious to etiquette. In the family roles, because of the strengthening of the male parent’s image the status, the role of husband as a member of the family gradually weakened in the novels, which indicates the gradual decline of patriarchal society. With the thought of "Men are Superior to Women" deeply rooted in society of Chosen Dynasty, there appeared the images of submissive "Virtuous wife", the images of sinister and diabolical "Jealous wife", the images of selfish and greedy "Greedy wife", and the images of sinister and venomous "Jealous Concubine". However, whether it is "Virtuous wife" or "Jealous Concubine", all of them are the victims of the ancient unreasonable marriage system and patriarchal society. "Filial piety" is the core of the Confucian family ethics. The Korean family ethics novels which are affected by the ethics appeared a group of images of filial children, but at the same time, a series of the images of the rebellious children who dare to resist the propriety were also appeared. By the analysis of these characters, we have a more thorough sense of the complexity of human nature and the influence of social environment on human nature.Family ethics novels in the Chosen Dynasty opened up the subject field of the novels in Chosen Dynasty, namely from historical and mythical themes to the theme of common people’s real life. It enhanced the function of practical edification of "Virtue rewarded and Vice punished" by novels and enriched people’s leisure life. It reflected the unjust marriage system of the ancient feudal society and social problems like status hierarchy system. Meanwhile, it also reflected the status and folk customs of the ancient Korean Society of Confucianism. Not only in the aspect of ideology, but also in the aspect of the artistic technique, family ethics novels in this period provide a lot of reference to the creation of the later novels. Therefore, the family ethics novels in Chosen Dynasty play a significance role in the history of Korean novels. To sum up, family ethics novels in Chosen Dynasty seize an important position in the literary history. However, there also exists some limitations; namely, plan narration takes greater part than description, flat characters leads to inconsistency with the facts and overwhelming happy-endings. Besides, some conceptions embodied in the novels advocate blind "devotion" and passive "fatalism". Despite these limitations, its profound influence on the development of Korean literary history is by no means negligible.