Owing to the reinforced patriarchal gender politics in late Joseon Dynasty,
many stories for the women of chaste reputation( In Korean, “Yoelnyo” 烈女)
spreaded nationwide. On the other hand, there were also many stories about
women who killed her husband. In this thesis, I studied the meaning of cultural
sociology on the ‘killing-husband’ themed narratives in late Joseon Dynasty.
This kind of stories had been transmitted as didactic and interesting themes.
This kind of narrative tells that the adultery must result in marital homicide then
give rise to a storm of one´s indignation. It looks just like moral issues, but
it hides misogyny. Anger against crime leads to violence, and the judgment
ending style gives impress to the people. therefore, many people like these
stories.
The narrative of the victory gives the ethical pleasure to mem who were on
the fear of the late Joseon Dynasty. The narrative will dominate the imagination
of the community in cooperation with the reality of the incident, law, norms.
When the narrative recognize women’s sexual desire and murder as the anger of the sub-entities, or simply consider it as the personal conflict, the meaning
of the symbol of the patriarchal killing is awake. In 1924, the beauty syndrome
who killed her husband, showed the crack of the symbol of the patriarchal
killing narrative.
Typical symbol of the patriarch killing narrative of the late Joseon Dynasty
was collapsed in early 20th century. However, it is still in progress to establish
one’s subjecthood using morally differentiated to others and hatred of the
subject.