Yangban

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The Yangban (Korean: 양반, 兩班), were

part of the traditional ruling class or gentry
of dynastic Korea during the Joseon
Dynasty. The yangban were mainly
composed of civil servants and military
officers—landed or unlanded aristocrats
who individually exemplified the Korean
Confucian idea of a "scholarly official".
Basically, they were administrators and
bureaucrats who oversaw ancient Korea's
traditional agrarian bureaucracy until the
Joseon Dynasty ended in 1894. In a
broader sense, an office holder's family
and descendants as well as country
families who claimed such descent were
socially accepted as yangban.

Yangban
Hangul 양반
Hanja 兩班
Revised Romanization Yangban

McCune–Reischauer Yangpan

Overview
Unlike noble titles in the European and
Japanese aristocracies, which were
conferred on a hereditary basis, the
yangban title was granted by law to
individuals who passed state-sponsored
civil service exams called gwageo ( 과거, 科
擧). Upon passing these exams—which
tested knowledge of the Confucian
classics and history—several times, a
person was usually assigned to a
government post. A yangban family that
did not produce a government official for
more than three generations could lose its
status and become commoners. In theory,
a member of any social class except
indentured servants, baekjeongs, and
children of concubines could take the
government exams and become a
yangban. In reality, only the upper classes
—i.e., the children of yangban—possessed
the financial resources and the
wherewithal to pass the exams, for which
years of studying were required. These
barriers and financial constraints
effectively excluded most non-yangban
families and the lower classes from
competing for yangban status.
A country house of a prominent local family in
Gangneung, built in the 19th century.

Yangban status on a provincial level was

de facto hereditary. It was customary to
include all descendants of the office
holders in the hyangan ( 향안, 鄕案), a
document that listed the names and
lineages of local yangban families. The
hyangan was maintained on blood basis,
and one could be cut off from it if
members of the family married social
inferiors, such as tradesmen. Although the
hyangan was not legally supported by
government acts or statutes, the families
listed in it were socially respected as
yangban. Their householders had the
customary right to participate in the
hyangso ( 향소, 鄕所), a local council from
which they could exercise influence on
local politics and administration.[1] By
reserving and demanding socio-political
power through local instruments such as
hyangan and hyangso, yangban
automatically passed down their status to
posterity in local magnate families, with or
without holding central offices. These
provincial families of gentility were often
termed jaejisajok ( 재지사족, 在地士族),
which means "the country families". Thus,
while legally, yangban meant high-ranking
officials, in reality it included almost all
descendants of the former and
increasingly lost its legal exactitude.

A leisure class: a yangban takes a break while hunting.

Hyewon, early 19th century.

Throughout Joseon history, the monarchy

and the yangban existed on the slave labor
of the lower classes, particularly the
sangmin, whose bondage to the land as
indentured servants enabled the upper
classes to enjoy a perpetual life of leisure
—i.e., the life of "scholarly" gentlemen.
These practices effectively ended in 1894
during the Korean empire of Gwangmu
Reform.

In today's Korea, the yangban legacy of

patronage based on common educational
experiences, teachers, family
backgrounds, and hometowns continues
in some forms, officially and unofficially. In
South Korea, the practice exists among the
upper class and power elite, where
patronage among the conglomerates
tends to predictably follow blood, school,
and hometown ties. In North Korea, a de
facto yangban class exists that is based
mostly on military and party alliances.

Etymology
Yangban literally means "two branches" of
administration: munban ( 문반, 文班) which
comprises civil administrators and muban
( 무반, 武班) which comprises martial office
holders. The term yangban first appeared
sometime during the late Goryeo dynasty
but gained wider usage during the Joseon
dynasty.[2] However, from the sixteenth
century onward yangban increasingly
came to denote local wealthy families who
were mostly believed to be the
descendants of once high-ranking
officials. As more of the population
aspired to become yangban and gradually
succeeded in doing so in the late Joseon
period by purchasing the yangban status,
the privileges and splendor the term had
inspired slowly vanished. It even gained a
diminutive connotation.

A group of yangban women attending a family ritual.

Late 18th century.
History
Yangban were the Joseon Dynasty
equivalent of the former Goryeo nobles
who had been educated in Buddhist and
Confucian studies. With the succession of
the Yi generals in the Joseon dynasty, prior
feuds and factions were quelled through a
decisive attempt to instill administrative
organization throughout Korea and create
a new class of agrarian bureaucrats. The
individual yangban included members of
this new class of bureaucrats and former
Goryeo nobility. While ostensibly open to
과거) catered
all, the "civil service exams" (
to the lifestyle and habits of the yangban,
which created a semi-hereditary
meritocracy, as yangban families
overwhelmingly possessed the minimum
education, uninterrupted study time and
immense financial resources to pass such
exams. The yangban, like the Mandarins
before them, dominated the Royal Court
and military of pre-Modern Korea and
often were exempt from laws including
those relating to taxes.
One of the earliest photographs depicting Yangban,
taken in 1863.

There were at most 100 positions open

with thousands of candidates taking the
exams. Competition that was originally
supposed to bring out the best in each
candidate gave way to the importance of
familial relationships. Because the Joseon
Court was constantly divided among the
Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western
faction members (the eccentric
geographical naming derived from the
location of each leader's house in Seoul
which were divided into subsections)
resulted in a divided system where
corruption was very difficult. With each
faction constantly probing for an excuse to
kill off the other, if one faction was proven
to be corrupt then the other factions would
immediately jump on the chance to purge
them. The attempt to receive or give bribes
on a massive scale was suicide. It wasn't
until the reign of King Sunjo that the Kim
clan of Andong in cooperation with few
other blood related grandee clans
obtained full control over the court — after
purging their rival factions and other rival
clans in their own political faction the
Joseon bureaucracy degenerated into
corruption. At this level the exceptionally
powerful families could be more properly
referred to as sedoga ( 세도가, 勢道家)
instead of mere yangban, which by then
came to include shades of classes other
than the grandees.

From the sixteenth century and

increasingly during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, high-ranking offices
were monopolized by a few grandee
families based in Seoul or the Han River
Valley, therefore blocking any chance of
gaining high-ranking posts by many
provincial families of pedigree. However,
provincial magnates began to refer
themselves as yangban whether they held
government offices or not. As more
families claimed to be yangban and
exercised provincial influences through
local institutions, such as local council,
pedigree acknowledgment and Confucius
school (seowon), the term lost its original
meaning and became a sort of social
status that had a confusing legal standing.
Its economic and cultural domain was
clear, though. A landlord who studied
classics at seowon ( 서원, 書院) could be
easily looked upon as yangban by the local
populace. People could now purchase
yangban status by paying to procure lower
government posts or jokbo, the noble
pedigree.

Nearly all yangban of upper-high ranking

grandee to lower-ranking provincial
landlord status suddenly lost their ancient
political, social and economic power
during the twentieth century. The legality
of yangban was abolished in 1894.
Subsequently their political and
administrative role was replaced by
Japanese colonial government and its
administrators, although some yangban
maintained their wealth and power by
cooperating with the Japanese. However,
the erosion of an idea of complete and
exclusive power was irreversible. Many
yangban families lost their estates as land
became a marketable commodity. This
economic debasement gained a
tremendous force during the Korean War
when land ownership was disturbed in an
unprecedented scale. When South Korea
began its new government after the war,
yangban were mostly extinct and
powerless, which is one reason the South
Korean government was relatively free
from landed interests. President Syngman
Rhee had "rehired" the yangban to hold
positions in the new government during
the late 1940s. He made this decision to
bring them back to start the government
off on a good footing, by using those who
were already familiar with lawmaking and
such. However, his effort came to none
when the war broke out in 1950. After this
decade the country was to be dominated
by the military and industrial magnates.

In modern-day Korea, the yangban as a

social class with legal status and landed
wealth, no longer exists, in the north or the
south. Nevertheless, those who are well-
connected in Korean society are
sometimes said to have "yangban"
connections. Though these claims may
have some merit, such references are not
usually intended to suggest any real
yangban lineage or ancestry. (Many
descendants of the yangban class live
today. As the changing fortunes of that
class rendered many individuals of
"former" yangban status, it is not a stretch
to assume that many, if not most, Koreans
have at least some connection to the
yangban class, if not any direct descent. In
addition, the acquisition or theft of clan
lineage records or jokbo during
tumultuous times in Korea's history has
thrown doubt on some claims of yangban
descent.) Today, the yangban have been
replaced by the Korean ruling class, i.e., an
elite class of business and government
elites, who dominate the country through
their wealth, power and influence
channeled through their familial and social
networks. (This applies to North and South
Korea, though the North's elite class is
largely military-based.) The word is also
used, at least in South Korea, as a
common reference (sometimes with
distinctly negative connotations, reflecting
the negative impression the class system
and its abuses left on Koreans as a whole)
to an older, sometimes
cantankerous/stubborn man.

Lists of Yangban families

Jinju Kang clan (ko) (Hangul: 진주 강씨;
Hanja: 晉州姜氏
Gwangsan Kim clan ( 광산 김씨, 光山 金
氏)
Andong Kim clan (안동 김씨, 安東 金氏)
Cheongju Han clan (청주 한씨, 淸州 韓氏)
Miryang Park (Park, 밀양 박씨, 密陽 朴
氏) : Monarch Clan of Silla
Eunjin Song
Jeonju Yi clan
Gyeongju Seok : Monarch Clan of Silla
Gumcheon Kang clan (ko) (Hangul: 금천
강씨; Hanja: 衿川 姜氏)
Gimhae Kim
Goryeong Park
Namyang Hong
Pungyang Jo
Gwangsan Noh Clan ( 광산 노씨, 光山 盧
氏)
Yeoheung Min clan
Cheongpung Kim
Gyeongju Kim
Deoksu Jang
Bannam Park
Wonju Byun
Wonju Won
Goksan Kang clan (ko) (Hangul: 곡산 강
씨; Hanja: 谷山 康氏)
Cheongsong Shim
Geochang Shin
Uisong Kim
Andong Kwon
Yeonan Lee
Papyeong Yoon
Munhwa Yoo (= Munhwa Ryu)
Changwon Hwang
Hadong Jung
Dongrae Jung
Pungsan Ryu
Pyeongsan Shin
Jinju Ryu
 SuAn Lee (수안이씨 -遂安李氏) -
References: 수안이씨족보 遂安李氏族譜 -
SuAn Lee Clan Family Pedigree Book:
Publication dated 1938 and 2011.

Ranks and titles

State Council of Joseon

Yeonguijeong, Chief State Councillor

Jwauijeong, Second State Councillor
Uuijeong, Third State Councillor

See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related
to yangban.
 Cheonmin
Chungin
Seonbi
Culture of Korea
Gat (hat)
History of Korea
Korean Confucianism
Korean ruling class
Sangmin
Scholar-official, for the Chinese form
Syngman Rhee
Park Chung-hee

References
 규장각한국학연구원. 《조선 양반의 일생》.
1.
파주 : 글항아리, 2009.
2. "yangban" . Encyclopædia Britannica.
Retrieved 2014-05-26.

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