Abstract:
This paper explores how the legal limbo created by the arbitrary withholding of Japanese Civil Code on divorce matters between 1922 and 1938 influenced the practice of concubinage in colonial Korea. Contrary to the claim of the High Court of Korea in 1938 that the practice of concubinage had decreased in that period, I argue that concubines were only qualitatively transformed, from being a socially stigmatized second-class spouse into becoming a companionate partner in the new ideal of conjugal marriage. This cultural process, I further argue, transpired from the transformation of the legal definition of a female spouse at large, what I would call the affectivization of the female-spouse, where affective companionship became the definitive legal criteria of the female spouse. Notably, the process encompassed all female spouses, wives and concubines. When concubines in civil lawsuits began defending their conjugal relationship within the scope of love and affection, wives also began adopting the rhetoric of affect to defend their position as spouse. In other words, regardless of the legal status of the relationship, love and affection became the defining qualities of a conjugal relationship in the 1920s and 1930s. The increasing importance of affective companionship eventually strengthened the legal status of wives, but with it their rights to economic independence were weakened. Concubines, who customarily had strong rights to economic independence, lost out even more. Such qualitative transformation of the conjugal relationship predated the 1938 full assimilation of the Korean marriage and divorce laws to that of the Japanese metropole.