| This dissertation is an effort to construct a feminist jurisprudence in Korean family law based upon a thorough understanding of the law. The family law in this dissertation is interpreted as historical documents in Korea as well as the metaphorical space in which women in the society have lived. The dissertation examines the predicament of family law during Japanese colonialism (1910-1945) and the nature of the family institution during Chosun dynasty (1392-1910). The process of family law legislation after decolonization (1945-1957) and the revision of the law in 1962, 1977, and 1989 are then reexamined. This historical analysis demonstrates how the notion of Korean "custom" in the family institution was constructed during colonialism, and how this heritage has continued in the binary concepts of tradition and modernity in contemporary Korean family law.;In the textual analysis of the statutes, the central inquiry is into the locations of women in the areas of "status" and property relations within the law. By re-reading the law from women's positions, the dissertation discloses how women have been absent in the system of patrilineage on the one hand, and on the other, how women's situation reflects the anachronism of the current law which belongs to multiple time-periods. The dissertation emphasizes that in order to deconstruct the patriarchy, the law's history in which the institutions have been constructed must be traced and the very structural logic of the patrilineage, rather than the individual equality, needs to be understood. It concludes with suggestions for future revision of the law and by underlining the social amnesia about colonialism, tradition, and patriarchy. In these conditions of ignorance, however, feminism in Korea becomes the bright eyes of social wisdom. |
