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Sossang and Danji: 15th century Korean maidservants in love—a guest-blog by L.J. Lee                  

Copyright (c) 2024 by L.J. Lee, all rights reserved. Contact the author for permissions.

Content warning: Sexual violence and stalking, enslavement, corporeal punishment, sexism, violent lesbophobia, classism

Introduction

Sossang and Danji were two enslaved maidservants in the Korean royal palace who were in a romantic and sexual relationship with each other, as recorded in the Annals of Sejong the fourth King of Joseon (ruled 1418–1450). I discussed this record in a large overview post on records of homosexuality in premodern Korea. When I say "earlier post" or "post on premodern homosexuality," that is the post I am referring to. This post is an expansion of the relevant section with historical and societal background, a translation of relevant passages from the Annals, and my own commentary.

Comments and attention on this incident have mainly focused on a third woman, the Crown Princess Consort from the family Bong, who broke Sossang up with Danji and raped Sossang. To me, though, the main point of interest in this record is that it depicts a sexual and romantic relationship between enslaved women, one violently disrupted by a jealous princess. These unique circumstances and the official investigation into them resulted in the only surviving account of named, real-life premodern Korean women in a consensual homosexual relationship, to my knowledge.

Sossang and Danji were far from unique as premodern Korean women who loved each other, of course. It is indisputable that many such relationships existed, as the record translated here itself demonstrates, along with others discussed in the earlier post. These relationships existed both in the royal palace where some of these women were caught and punished for their illicit relationships, and also in the wider society where they could not be nearly as effectively watched or penalized. These two particular women simply had the bad luck to be preyed on by a member of the royal family and forced into official attention and the record, in contrast to numerous other women in homosexual relationships who lived and died in what was likely a much safer obscurity.

This makes the record of these two women representative as well as individual: In addition to discussing the relationship of two specific women, it also talks about them in the larger context of similarly-situated women loving each other. It is through a hostile and violent viewpoint, to be sure, but the information we may glean from it is still valuable.

Social and historical context

The following are notes on the enormous subjects of human enslavement, societal order, and social attitudes toward homosexuality in the relevant era. I touch on them here to give context to the passages presented in the next section. If you have no background on premodern Korean society and are interested in learning, you may want to look through this section. If you would rather dive into the historical material first, feel free to jump to the Translation section and refer back for any confusing details. I will try again in the Commentary section to synthesize and contextualize the historical record.

• Slavery in the Goryeo and Joseon eras

You may find it helpful to understand that Sossang and Danji were enslaved domestic servants, and what that meant in the society they lived in. By slavery I mean the institution of classes of persons who were socially viewed as the "property" of other persons or institutions, were subject to being bought and sold, and were sharply restricted in their movements, selection of livelihood, ownership of property, and family life.

These enslaved people's status was hereditary, with some Korean societies instituting rules where a person with at least one enslaved parent was also enslaved. By the post-medieval Joseon era of Korea, the majority of enslaved persons were those who had inherited their status, meaning they were enslaved from birth. Causes for new supplies of enslaved persons other than heritage included imprisonment in war, unpaid debt, and punishment for serious offenses such as murder or treason including collective punishment of entire family lines and households.

A formal term for enslaved persons was nobi (奴婢), with no (奴) meaning enslaved men and bi (婢) enslaved women. Another included cheonmin (賤民) or cheonin (賤人) meaning the lowest classes/lowest people, focusing on their social status. Some cheonmin, such as traveling performers, meat workers in the Joseon era, or shamans were not formally enslaved. All enslaved classes were cheonmin, however. A casual term is jong (종), a derogatory word for a servant, many of whom were enslaved persons.

There were broadly two types of nobi in the Goryeo and Joseon (medieval and post-medieval) eras of Korean history, gongnobi (公奴婢) enslaved by public bodies and sanobi (私奴婢) enslaved by private families. Gongnobi were pressed into service for government and public institutions including central government departments, waystations, palace households, regional prefectures, and Confucian schools. The large numbers of Buddhist temple-bound nobi during the Goryeo era were transferred to public enslavement and became gongnobi when the temples were reduced in size and possessions.

Sanobi were generally classed into live-in and out-dwelling nobi. The former were made to live in the households of their enslavers to provide domestic or farm labor, while out-dwelling nobi kept their own households and were compelled to pay their enslavers in products or money. Out-dwelling nobi, who were the majority of sanobi in the early Joseon era, were similar to free commoners in everyday life and status including the ability to own property and grow their wealth, with the difference that their status could change at the order of their enslavers. A few such out-dwelling nobi did become famously wealthy, but of course the vast majority of nobi were impoverished from systemic exploitation.

Nobi were subject to enormous social and legal inequities. Their enslavers had the legal power to punish and control them, so long as the enslavers' actions fell short of wilful murder or excessive cruelty. (Even this minimal restriction was routinely violated, of course.) Nobi were punished more heavily than free people for any crimes against their enslavers: The punishment for a nobi battering their enslaver was death by beheading, for instance. Nobi were also not allowed to report their enslavers' crimes unless it was treason.

The control of enslavers over nobi extended into personal and family life as well. Since nobi status was hereditary and such heritage was the main means for the continuation of the nobi classes, the reproductive and family lives of nobi touched directly on the wealth of their enslavers. If nobi enslaved by the same entity married each other and had children, it posed no problems for the enslaver and was a welcome addition to their wealth. However, if two nobi with different enslavers had children, the enslaver of the father was perceived to have suffered a loss because the children would be claimed by their mother's enslaver, to the gain of the mother's enslaver and not the father's. In such cases, enslaved fathers have been on record as being punished or forced to compensate their enslavers. The inheritance and sale of enslaved people by their enslavers also disrupted the family lives of the enslaved, as families could be split up in such processes.

The status of children born between free and enslaved persons went back and forth for much of Joseon history in a struggle between the central government and enslaving families. The government pushed to give these children their freedom so they would owe labor and taxation to the state, while the enslaving classes pushed for children of free-enslaved unions to be enslaved to them so they could continue to extract labor and payment down the generations. In 1731 the conflict was settled in favor of free status for children of these mixed unions.

The ensuing decades would see the decline of enslavement as an institution as more and more enslaved people had free children, escaped, bought out, or forged papers to free themselves. The formal institution of slavery was abolished in 1894 along with the class system itself. The remaining practices of enslavement in private life gradually disappeared with modernization.

Source: Nobi entry in the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture

• Dynastic legitimacy and Confucian order in Joseon

Another crucial background of this incident is the vast political change that still reverberated through the kingdom. The record takes place in in CE 1436, Year 18 of Sejong the fourth king of Joseon, only 44 years after the kingdom was founded in 1392. [1] Sejong's grandfather Yi Seong-gye was a late Goryeo-era general and politician who seized power in the tumult from the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China, chaos in Goryeo from geopolitical turmoil and internal conflicts, and mounting challenges to governance including the inadequacy of state revenue and failing central control. The section of the earlier premodern homosexuality post on King Gongmin discusses his failed attempts to reform and stabilize the troubled kingdom. After dethroning and executing Gongmin's three successors, Yi Seong-gye finally took the throne for himself and founded the new kingdom of Joseon. He would be known as Taejo the founding king of Joseon.

Having wrested power from the Goryeo dynasty, Yi Seong-gye/Taejo and his line had to prove that they were not mere usurpers but worthy of ruling as kings. The new dynasty sought to establish such legitimacy in part by instilling a strict Confucian order, placing the King at the apex of secular order and fathers at the tops of their own households. The new Yi royal family could pose themselves as the enforcers of stability and order after the turmoil of the Goryeo years, and as upholders of patriarchal rule and morality in contrast to the libertine excesses of Goryeo. This direction also aligned the royal family with the Confucian bureaucrat class who were a major source of support during the late Goryeo years and beyond.

Confucianism was not only a political ideology but a program of social control over private and political life alike.

In this ideal, when applied to families, children owed filial piety and obedience to patriarchs at the heads of families, and women played roles within their households as obedient wives, daughters, and mothers. The degree and forms of such control differed greatly across social class, wealth, region, and many other factors, but the ideal existed of an order ruled by benevolent patriarchs at every level of society with all others giving their obedience and support. This entailed strict controls on women in particular, with expectations of modesty and chastity, obedience to patriarchal social order including submitting to polygamy without jealousy (while wives' own sexuality was heavily restricted), and personal virtues of work ethic and gentle temperament essential to the maintenance and reproduction of this social order.

This neo-Confucian order is the context for understanding major points of the record in the next section, including Sejong as both king and patriarch making decisions about his son the Crown Prince's marriage with little visible input from the Crown Prince himself, and the expectations that were placed on princesses and domestic servants alike for decorum and chastity. The issues involved more than personal distaste or even marital unfaithfulness, but implicated the stability of the royal family and the kingdom itself in the political-familial-cosmic order they took place in.

Sources: HistoryNet article on the founding of Joseon; Hyun June Ahn, "King Sejong's Female Gender Awareness and Punishment of Homosexuals – Focusing on Crown Princess Bong's Case," Master's thesis in literature for the Department of History, The Graduate School, Pukyong National University, 2021 (안현준, 세종의 여성 성(性)인식과 동성애의 처벌 – 세자빈 봉씨 사건을 중심으로. 2021년 8월 부경대학교 대학원 사학과 문학석사학위논문)

• Homosexuality in Goryeo and Joseon

This incident also seems to reflect changing attitudes toward homosexuality in a time of social transition between the Goryeo and Joseon eras. One indication of Goryeo-era attitudes is that at least three kings from early and late Goryeo are on record as having been in sexual relationships with men. The records attach no moral judgment to these relationships so long as they were conducted properly, for instance so long as the king kept up his duty to uphold dynastic continuity.

Two kings of Goryeo were recorded as having homosexual relationships without being morally condemned for it: King Mokjong in the 10th century had no children with his women consorts (a Queen Consort and a concubine) and had at least one male lover, but it seems this was largely unproblematic because he adopted his young cousin to be his heir. King Chungseon in the 13th century had Korean and Mongol consorts and concubines he had many children with, and at least one male lover. He was not morally judged either for what we would today call a bisexual personal life.

In contrast, Chungseon's grandson King Gongmin in the 14th century was heavily condemned for sexual activities with his male bodyguards because he was apparently a recipient of penetration and caused the young men to do “wanton deeds unto him as to a woman.” He also had a different male lover for whom the records used the conventional refined and non-judgmental language for such relationships. The partner himself was criticized for his abuses of power, but this was a common charge across premodern Korean and Chinese records for kings' male lovers and female consorts alike.

Failure to carry on the dynasty was another major reason a king who had homosexual relations might face disapproval. Gongmin's sexuality may be ambiguous in modern terms as he is famous for his emotional attachment to his queen who died having his child, but the historical record also states that sexual intimacy with even her was infrequent and nearly nonexistent with other women. The History of Goryeo blames this proclivity for Gongmin's lack of an heir and the subsequent uncertainty surrounding his successors' legitimacy. [2]

In summary, what mattered in judging the homosexual relationships of Goryeo kings was not the gender of a king's sexual partner but rather the way the king conducted himself. For instance, was the sexual activity proper for a king's status? And did he uphold his duties, especially the paramount one of ensuring the dynasty continued through his heirs?

There are other indications of generally positive or neutral stances toward homosexuality in the Goryeo era. A case in point is a poem by the famous writer Yi Gyubo about his friend the Buddhist monk Gonggong's romantic relationship with a young man. I am not aware of any Goryeo-era or earlier Korean records, or even literary works about or allusions to female homosexual relationships. However, as noted in the terminology section of the earlier post, the origin of the widely-used term daeshik was in female homosexuality and knowledge of the practice was widespread. Yi Gyubo's poem uses the term to celebrate love between men.

Joseon's official royal records depart from the generally accepting attitude toward homosexuality in Goryeo-era records. The Annals of the kings of Joseon are to the best of my knowledge entirely devoid of any direct record of homosexual activity by kings, and the rape of Sossang by the Crown Princess Consort Bong appears to be the only record of homosexual activity by a member of the royal family, taking place in the very early years of dynastic history at that.

One explanation for this change is that the Yi dynasty really was made of entirely different stuff from the preceding Wang dynasty and were an entirely heterosexual family line that never had any homosexual or gender non-conforming leanings for half a millennium. The other is that, as part of the dynasty's self-image as enforcers and upholders of patriarchal family order, such records were increasingly suppressed where the royal family was concerned. Having no solid factual basis for either conclusion, I will leave the matter up for readers to decide.

Nevertheless, records of homosexuality persist throughout the Joseon period in other sectors of Korean society. Unambiguous references to homosexual activity by high-ranking lords and ladies are last seen in the 15th century, but strongly suggestive to unambiguous accounts of both female and male homosexuality among working and monastic classes appear into the 19th century. For more details, refer to the latter parts of the earlier premodern homosexuality post.

It should also be noted that homosexuality was not singled out for particular condemnation compared to what was viewed as illicit heterosexual activity. As also noted in the earlier post, illicit heterosexual activity by palace attendants could carry even heavier penalties than homosexual ones, and there is no evidence of official penalties for homosexual activities outside the context of the palace as opposed to, say, male-female adultery. The national project, as discussed in the earlier section on Confucian order, was to uphold patriarchal familial and political order, and both heterosexual and homosexual activities could be a threat. In general moral rules and criminal law had much more to say about illicit heterosexual activities than homosexual ones, and other than general disapproval and penalties under some very specific circumstances (such as palace life, adultery, and false accusations), there is no evidence of official organized crackdowns on homosexuality in of itself.

Translation of excerpts from the record

[Translator's notes and summaries in square brackets.]

Book 75 of the Annals of Sejong; second article of the 26th day of Month 10, Sejong Year 1, Year of Yellow Rat <CE 1436, Ming zhèngtǒng 正统 Year 1>

上御思政殿, 召都承旨辛引孫、同副承旨權採, 令就御榻前, 屛左右曰:

The King went out to Sajeong-jeon [the hall where state matters were discussed] where he summoned Doseungji [official of the department that sent out royal decrees] Shin Inson and Dongbuseungji [a lower official of the same department] Gwon Chae to call them before the royal seat, then sent out the other officials and said:

比年以來, 事多不諧, 心實無聊, 近又有一異事, 言之亦可羞恥。

"Since this year I have no peace because so many matters have gone amiss. Another matter has arisen lately that is shameful even to speak of.

我祖宗以來, 家法克正, 比及予身, 亦賴中宮之助。

"Order in the home has been set to utmost uprightness ever since the advent of this dynasty and court, and in matters of my own person I have been greatly aided by my Queen Consort.

中宮極柔嘉, 無妬忌之意, 太宗每稱有樛木逮下之德, 以故家道雍穆, 以至于今。

"The Queen Consort is exceedingly gentle in character and all her words and deeds are exemplary without a shadow of possessive jealousy. King Taejong [Sejong's father, the third King of Joseon] regularly heaped praise on her virtue as being like the supple branches of a tree reaching downward. Thus was the state of affairs until the present time."

[Here follows an account of Sejong's son the Crown Prince's marital history. The Crown Prince, who would go on to become the next king Munjong, was first married at the age of 14 to beget heirs early, but the first Crown Princess Consort from House Kim lost her position for a scandal involving the use of magical curses out of jealousy. Her successor as Crown Princess Consort was a young lady from House Bong, but her marital relationship with the Crown Prince was also lacking and they had no children. Sejong and his Queen Consort did their best to teach their daughter-in-law in the ways of the home and a royal wife, but "as even parents may not fully instruct their children in matters of the bedroom," the situation improved little except in appearance. Three royal concubines were therefore selected from good families for the Crown Prince, which angered his Princess Consort who was of a jealous temperament. She was especially threatened and even wept out loud when one of her husband's concubines, a lady from House Gwon, fell pregnant. Her parents-in-law the King and Queen remonstrated the Crown Princess Consort against such unseemly jealousy in a wife and Princess Consort, to no avail.]

[Then there follows an account of Crown Princess Consort Bong's other improprieties, including allowing an elderly servant woman to make her parents garments out of the Crown Prince's undergarments; falsely claiming to be pregnant and then to have miscarried; watching outsiders through cracks in the attendants' outhouse walls; having her maidservants sing songs about loving men; personally making items such as knee protectors and pouches for palace eunuchs, leaving her no time to make items for the Crown Prince's birthday and giving him old birthday offerings as though they were new; sending excess items and food to her mother's house without telling the Crown Prince; and giving gifts in thanks for her father's funerary rites, also without telling the Crown Prince.]

若此不穩之事頗多, 予皆以婦人不識大體, 故置之。

"There were many such improprieties that I let pass, thinking that she simply did not know the great courtesies of a wife.

近聞奉氏愛一宮婢召雙者, 常不離左右, 宮人或相言: "嬪與召雙常同寢處。"

"Recently I have heard that Lady Bong loved Sossang, a bi [enslaved woman] of the palace and would not let her leave her side, and the palace attendants would whisper to each other, 'The Princess Consort always beds and abides with Sossang.'

一日, 召雙灑掃宮內, 世子忽問: "汝信與嬪同寢乎?" 召雙愕然對曰: "然。"

"One day Sossang was cleaning in the palace when the Crown Prince suddenly asked her, 'Is it true you sleep with the Princess Consort?' To which Sossang replied in her fright: 'It is, Your Grace.'

其後頗聞奉氏酷愛召雙, 暫離左右, 則恨恚曰: "我雖甚愛汝, 汝則不甚愛我。"

"Afterward it was heard many a time that Lady Bong in her love for Sossang would be resentful and angry if the girl left her side for a moment, and would say, 'I love you to distraction, yet you love me but little.'

召雙亦常謂人曰: "嬪之愛我, 頗異於常, 我甚惶恐。"

"Sossang herself would always be telling those around her, 'The Crown Princess Consort's love for me is quite out of the ordinary and it frightens me.'

召雙又與權承徽私婢端之相好, 或與同寢, 奉氏以私婢石加伊, 常隨其後, 使不得與端之同遊。

"Sossang was also intimate with Royal Concubine Gwon's [the Crown Prince's concubine's] sabi [privately enslaved woman] Danji and the two would sleep together. Lady Bong would have her sabi Seokga'i always shadow Sossang, frustrating her attempts to spend time with Danji.

先是, 奉氏晨興, 常使侍婢斂衾枕, 自與召雙寢處以後, 不復使侍婢而自斂之, 又潛使其婢澣濯其衾。

"Previously Lady Bong would have her attending maidservant [I will use this term from here on for enslaved women in this particular context of domestic servitude] take away her pillows and bedding at dawn when she rose, but since sleeping and sharing her bedding with Sossang she never again gave the task to her attending maidservant but would gather the items herself, and have her maidservant wash the bedding in secret.

此事頗喧於宮中, 故予與中宮召召雙而問其狀, 召雙言: "去歲冬至, 嬪夜召我入內, 他婢皆在戶外, 要我同宿, 我辭之, 嬪强之, 不得已半脫衣入屛裏, 嬪盡奪餘衣, 强使入臥相戲, 有如男子交合狀。"

[CAUTION: THIS PARAGRAPH IS A VICTIM'S FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF RAPE BY COERCION]

"With these matters causing a stir in the palace, the Queen Consort and I summoned Sossang to ask her the truth of it. She said: 'This past winter solstice the Princess Consort called me inside while all the other maidservants waited outside the door. She demanded I sleep with her, which I demurred. She forced the matter, however, and unable to say no, I took off half my clothes to enter behind the screen. The Princess Consort took away the rest of my clothes, made me enter and lie down, and we pleasured each other in form similar to lying with a man.'

予常聞侍女從婢等私相交好, 與同寢處, 甚惡之, 宮中嚴立禁令, 有犯者, 司察之女卽啓, 決杖七十, 猶不能禁止, 則或加杖一百, 然後其風稍息。

"Often did I hear that female attendants, maidservants and others would engage in such private unsanctioned intimacy, sleeping and abiding with each other. Loathing such custom I set up strict prohibitions in the palace, and those found in violation by the report of the watching women were put to seventy strikes; if this was insufficient to deter them they would be put to 100 more, after which the custom somewhat abated.

予之惡有此風, 殆天誘其衷而然也。豈圖世子之嬪, 亦慕此風, 蕩泆如此?

"Surely my hatred of this custom was Heaven moving my heart. How could I have ever thought that the Crown Prince's own Consort would follow such custom to this wantonness?

乃召嬪而問之, 答曰: "召雙與端之, 常時愛好, 不獨夜同寢宿, 晝亦交頸砥舌, 此乃彼之所爲, 我則初無同宿之事。"

"I summoned the Princess Consort to ask her about this matter, to which she answered: 'Sossang and Danji were constant in their loving intimacy and would not only lie together at night, but also embrace neck-to-neck and suck on each others' tongues in the day. These were things they did together, that is all, and from the first there was never a time when I lay together.'

然諸證甚明, 豈能終諱? 且彼人交頸砥舌之事, 亦豈嬪之所宜知乎? 常見其事而歆羨, 則其勢必效而爲之, 益無疑矣。

"Yet with the evidence so clear, how could the truth be hidden to the end? And how could the Princess Consort have known that those two sucked tongue neck-to-neck? Doubtless that in always watching and envying such conduct, the weight of events would balance toward emulation and action.

其餘使侍婢唱歌及窺壁隙等事, 悉皆自服, 然餘事皆輕, 若非召雙之事, 則雖置之可也, 及聞召雙之事, 然後予意斷然欲廢。

"Other matters, such as causing maidservants to sing and looking out through wall cracks, she has confessed to in their entirety. The others are all relatively minor in nature, and if it were not for the matter of Sossang I could leave things be. However, having heard about the matter of Sossang, I am resolved to remove [the Princess Consort] from her position.

夫冢婦之職, 所係匪輕, 有此失德, 其何以承宗祀而母儀於一國乎?

"The office of the eldest legitimate son's wife is no light thing. With her having thus lapsed in her virtue, how could she uphold the house and set an example as the mother of the nation?"

[Sejong then goes into the intricacies of the situation and the gravity of removing a Princess Consort to raise another, especially when he had already removed one Crown Princess Consort. He discusses precedent from Chinese antiquity both for and against the decision, and how a second removal of a Crown Princess Consort would shock and unsettle the country. He consulted on the matter with high officials who were unanimous that Crown Princess Consort Bong must be expelled.]

斷以大義, 不得不然, 卿等詳知首末, 作敎旨草以進。 昔金氏之廢, 予方年少氣銳, 謂廢立重事, 不可曖昧, 故詳載其事於敎書, 今則不必然也。

"For the greater good I assuredly cannot do otherwise. You, sirs, are apprised of the matter from its very beginning; you will draft the decree and submit it. Back when I removed Lady Kim [the former Crown Princess Consort before Lady Bong] I was young in age and sharp of temperament, and had the matter accounted in detail in the decree because I deemed removing [a Princess Consort] and raising [another] to be a manner of great gravity where nothing may rightly be left ambiguous. That will not be necessary, however, in the present case.

奉氏與宮婢同宿之事極醜, 不可載於敎旨, 姑以性妬無子, 又唱歌等四五事數之, 與三大臣同議, 速製敎旨以進。

"Lady Bong's conduct in lying with a maidservant of the palace is ugly in the extreme and cannot be stated in official decree. Therefore, first count among her crimes four or five matters including her jealous nature and childlessness, and the singing. Then discuss the matter with the three high officials [Hwang Hui, No Han, and Shin Gae that he had previously consulted with] and swiftly draft the decree for submission."

引孫與採宣上旨于黃喜、盧閈、申槪, 同草敎旨以進, 卽令入直同知中樞金孟誠爲行香使, 以廢嬪告于宗廟, 廢黜奉氏爲庶人, 還于私第。

[The two officials] Inson and Chae [here referred to by their given names] passed on the King's will to Hwang Hui, No Han, and Shin Gae, after which they drafted the decree together for submission. Dongjijungchu [an official of a department in charge of carrying out royal orders and enforcing palace security] Kim Maeng was immediately on duty to take on the charge of incense-bearer and announced before the royal ancestral shrine that the Princess Consort would be removed. Lady Bong was expelled to commoner status and sent back to her family home.

[The contents of the royal decree follow, citing her improper conduct such as jealousy, lack of heirs, the love songs, and handling of palace property, without any mention of adultery with a maidservant.]

Source: Article in the Annals of Sejong on the disgrace of the Princess [https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/kda_11810026_002]

Commentary

This incident appears to have been a perfect storm of the pressures and mores of the age. Sejong betrays his, and his house's, self-consciousness as the king of a still-new dynasty ("ever since the advent of this dynasty and court…"), and is eager to make his own house an exemplar of domestic propriety and harmony, something he credits in part to the assistance of his virtuous chief consort the Queen. The ideological and political need to establish the still-new dynasty as the chief protector of family virtue and order resulted in a zeal to clean house, especially by controlling the conduct of women as a centerpiece of patriarchal order.

Leadership by example from the virtuous wife of the patriarch was particularly important to establish such familial order. To this end, the impeccable conduct of Sejong's Queen Consort is contrasted to Crown Princess Consort Bong's wanton and improper ways, with the Queen held up as the ideal the Crown Princess Consort must live up to as the future Queen Consort herself.

It is telling that Crown Princess Consort Bong was her husband's second Crown Princess Consort to be expelled from court, and the third for the new dynasty. As discussed by Sejong, there was a Crown Princess Consort Kim before her who was removed for jealousy and the use of magic, which were violations of wifely virtues such as acceptance of a husband's other partners and spiritual purity dictated by Confucianism. Going back two reigns to Sejong's grandfather Taejo the first King of Joseon, and only in the second year of his reign and of the dynasty in fact, Taejo's daughter-in-law the Crown Princess Consort Yu was also removed from her position and sent back home. Though Taejo refused to share the reason for the expulsion with his officials much to their consternation, [3] the beheading of a eunuch named Kim Manri at the same time led to the speculation that some improper conduct had taken place.

These expulsion incidents so early in the dynasty seem to be a sign of a clash between old and new norms. It seems unlikely that three different young women of very prominent families chosen by an intensive selection process were wholly unaware and unprepared for the demands of being a Princess Consort, and it is more plausible that they fell afoul of new norms that they did not expect. The records of the previous Goryeo dynasty are rife with accounts of royal women taking lovers and having children out of wedlock. It may be that highborn women used to greater sexual and personal freedoms failed to meet more restrictive social norms that had not entirely settled in yet in the first decades of the Joseon dynasty.

Greater control and repression took effect for women at the bottom of the palace hierarchy as well as those at the top. Sejong's account of love among female palace attendants and maidservants (enslaved female domestic servants) is an incontrovertible record of women workers loving other women. His fervency in violently attempting stamp out what he found a loathsome custom was another aspect of his efforts to mold his household, the highest in the land, into the exemplary Confucian ideal of feminine modesty and propriety.

As live-in domestic servants, Sossang and Danji also led some of the most restricted and closely-watched lives among enslaved classes of people. The record shows that Sossang was enslaved by a public institution while Danji was a privately enslaved live-in domestic worker who was in the palace as part of a royal concubine's household. In practice they would both have been live-in enslaved persons pressed into domestic servitude, since palace households doubled as both public institutions and family homes. This meant they had no households of their own and were continuously on duty. Even aside from the control their enslavers had over their family and reproduction as enslaved women, simply forming unions and having children in the first place may have been unacceptable given the exploitative labor demands placed on them.

Under these circumstances, working-class women in the palace loving other women would have been a plausible avenue of sexuality and intimacy for those inclined to engage in it. The Goryeo dynasty's institution of slavery and labor exploitation was at least as rapacious as Joseon's, but the comparatively lenient attitudes toward homosexuality and women's sexuality may have provided some cover. These private intimacies may have developed into a custom that the next dynasty would come to decry and try to suppress with violence.

"Try" is the operative word, of course, when it comes to suppressing women's love. As discussed in the earlier homosexuality post, records and contemporary commentary state or strongly suggest that the more elite ranks of female palace attendants persisted in sexual relationships with women as well as men. While the sex lives of enslaved women workers in the palace fade from the later official records, it seems likely that homosexual affairs continued to feature in some of their lives as well. It is impossible to tell whether sexual affairs between enslaved women workers in the palace even abated in Sejong's own time or were simply hidden better, despite the credit he gave himself for phasing out this custom with violent crackdowns.

These efforts to suppress women's homosexuality were limited in scope as well as effectiveness. This is without discounting how violent, repressive, and destructive these penalties were to the women who were caught up in them, of course. Sejong himself only spoke of setting up strict prohibitions in the palace, not the entirety of Joseon where there is no evidence of a general ban on male or female homosexuality though plenty of societal disapproval.

The official criminal codes of the time are silent on consensual homosexuality, though there is no doubt that the general and increasing restrictions placed on women's lives and sexuality would have sharply limited their sexual activities with women as well as with men. It is likely that there were also many incidents of private violence and discrimination that were never committed to the written record. In the case of rape, there were codes that punished the rape of a man by a man, but not of a woman by a woman such as Crown Princess Consort Bong was described as perpetuating on Sossang.

Criminal codes against rape would not have protected Sossang in any case. As an enslaved woman she was not legally protected from her enslavers' violence against her whatever their gender, and she would not have been able to report them through official channels. Nor would a nobleman, far less a male member of the royal household, have faced any consequences for assaulting her. Princess Consort Bong was removed from her position not for rape but for having an adulterous affair, much as Princess Consort Yu apparently was four decades earlier for her affair with a eunuch.

Furthermore, as previously discussed, homosexuality was a form of improper sex but not the only form. Though homosexual activities by women was officially repressed in certain limited contexts, they were not singled out for homosexuality in of itself but rather for the crime of illicit sex, whether with men or with women. Depending on the time period, a palace attendant having sex with a man other than the king was punishable by beheading for both parties, in contrast to the 70 blows on a first offense as mentioned by Sejong for homosexual activity. Kim Manri, the eunuch who appears to have been accused of adultery with Crown Princess Consort Yu in the first expulsion of a Princess Consort of Joseon, was similarly beheaded.

The record makes no mention of Sossang's and her lover Danji's fates, but we can speculate. It seems unlikely that they were given an official death sentence, especially since there were so many indications that Sossang was not a willing participant in the Princess's adultery. They could still have been punished for their relationship with each other, however, and may have been run out to fend for themselves or transferred to far harsher conditions. Even more grimly, it would not have been difficult to permanently silence two extremely vulnerable and marginalized women for the sake of preventing further embarrassment to the royal family.

A final point is the clarification that there was certainly homophobia in Joseon, and the specifics of criminal codes do nothing to take away from bigotry. It is itself sexist and homophobic, after all, to view homosexuality especially between women, and rape of a woman by a woman, as "lesser" activities that do not "count." There are also passages from scholarly texts in the late Joseon era showing clear disdain and disapproval of male homosexuality and possibly of female homosexuality, as discussed in the earlier post. The contention is not that there was no homophobia in Joseon, but rather that homosexuality was considered no more of a threat to the prevailing neo-Confucian order than illicit forms of heterosexuality. As with the social forms of homosexuality itself, the specifics of homophobia also differ by society and context.

Source: Han hee sook, "The significance of the expulsion of the Crown princess under the reign of Taejo and Sejong of the Joseon dynasty - Focusing on Hyenbin Ue, Whubin Kim, and Sunbing Bong -", Journal of Korean Personal History No. 14 (2010) 217-248 (한희숙, 조선 태조·세종대 세자빈 폐출 사건의 의미 - 현빈 유씨, 휘빈 김씨, 순빈 봉씨를 중심으로 -, 한국인물사연구 제14호 217-248).

Conclusion

We know about Sossang and Danji because their lives were turned upside-down by events outside their control. Their relationship was recorded under their true names and known to this day only because a princess stalked and raped Sossang, and the state bureaucracy headed by the princess's father-in-law deemed this a matter worthy of investigation—not as rape, but as sexual indiscretion unbecoming of a wife's virtue. Sejong's comments provide a window into the broader custom of working women in the palace, attendants and enslaved domestic servants, entering into romantic and sexual relationships with each other.

A part of Sossang and Danji's story comes through with moving truth and immediacy even through this hostile lens of interpersonal and institutional violence: These two enslaved women shared a relationship that aroused the envy of a princess who felt entitled to strip away the comfort shared by women in servitude who had so little else. At the same time, the broader community of working women who loved women aroused the king's moralistic ire in a violent backlash.

Sejong's attempts to eradicate women's love in the palace were a failure, however. Later records and commentary attest that this custom he so hated persisted in the very heart of Joseon's moralistic patriarchal order, the palace where his ancestral spirit was enshrined after his death. The king claimed Heaven had moved his heart to loathe the custom of women loving women. Perhaps these women were moved by a less lofty and more abiding power to be so constant in their loving intimacy with each other.

Notes

[1] This was also seven years before the promulgation of Hangul in 1443, for those who remember what Sejong is most famous for. At this point the research and work for the invention of Hangul, centered around the state research institute Jibhyeon-jeon (集賢殿, "Hall of Gathered Wisdom"), would have been fully established and ongoing.

[2] For more details and cautions in reading these records, see the section on King Gongmin from the earlier homosexuality post.

[3] Taejo's expulsion of Crown Princess Consort Yu without any explanation was a cause of political strife and purges, and multiple officials were exiled for speaking out. Perhaps Sejong wanted to avoid similar political fallout when he shared details with the country in Princess Consort Kim's case and at least with his closest officials in Princess Consort Bong's. It may also be a sign of a more mature bureaucratic and political system, with an assertive bureaucratic class demanding transparency and a king who had been trained from a young age as a royal prince, unlike his grandfather Taejo who was a soldier born in Mongol-controlled borderlands.