아시아의 가부장제와 公私 영역 연구의 의미

Patriarchy in Asia : Public and Private Spheres in Some Asian Countries - A note on the meanings

This paper, along with the next three papers, is an interim report of the research project entitled "Patriarchy in Asia: public and private spheres". The dualism of public and private spheres has been a core subject of critical theories as well as of women's studies. Public spaces versus private familial domains have been distinguished and separated in virtually all cultures. Most of the existing research on the dualism in recent history is based on the context of Western culture, the process of industrialization, and establishment of civil society. These previous studies are useful in explaining a broad outline of social structure and its relationship with transformation of patriarchy in Asia since most of Asian countries have gone through a considerable course of Westernization in their efforts to achieve the goal of modernization. However, they do not offer sufficient explanations for the particular nature of public/private distinctions in Asia which have been developed in the particular historical contexts in Asia. For the purpose of understanding patriarchy, the first part introduces hypotheses concerning the creation of patriarchy put forward by Gerda Lerner. The historical process by which patriarchy becomes established and institutionalized was manifested in changes in kinship organization and economic relations, in the establishment of religious and state bureaucracies, and in the shift of cosmogonies expressing the ascendancy of male god figures. The formation of archaic states with major economic, technological, and military changes not only brought shifts in power relations among men and women but also created mechanisms of public spheres such as legal codes regulating marriages rules, controlling women's sexuality, slavery and so on. The second part reviews the Korean cultural tradition regarding public and private distinctions on which the Western dualism was imposed. It also attempts to expose the conceptual change and confusion through some examples shown in the usage of ordinary language.