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1 results

  • 2 - Defying Claims of Incompetence

  • from Part I - Rights in Historical Perspective
  • Edited by Celeste L. Arrington, George Washington University, Washington DC, Patricia Goedde, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul
  • Book:
    Rights Claiming in South Korea
    Published online:
    17 April 2021
    Print publication:
    27 May 2021, pp 43-62

  • Summary

    The legal incompetence of wives (cheo-ui muneungnyeok) and its inhibitions on women’s legal rights in Korea during the Japanese colonial rule (1910–45) were emphasized during the postcolonial period. As a result, the actual legal activities of women during the colonial period have been overlooked. This chapter examines women’s lawsuits at the High Court of Colonial Korea (Chōsen kōtō hōin) over separate property rights during the colonial period. I show that women actively struggled in the colonial legal system to have their rights over separate property acknowledged against their opponents’ claims that Korean custom categorically denied property rights to women. Surprisingly, women won many of these cases. I argue that the colonial household registration system, where the rights of household heads over family property were strengthened, inadvertently resulted in the protection of separate property rights, many of which were held by women.