The Structure of Kinship and Marriage of the Royal Family and Operating Way of the Royal Investiture System in the Early and Middle Periods of Goryeo

In this article, the interrelationship between various systems for defining the Goryeo royal family and socio-cultural characteristics of the Goryeo dynasty is examined. The Goryeo royal family members had official titles related to their palace names where they lived and which reflected the blood ties or marriage relationships among royal family members right after the founding of that country. This initial system was replaced by the Chinese investiture system but in a process of replacement many creative transformations were involved. The constitution and operating way of the royal family investiture system in the early and middle periods of the Goryeo dynasty were far from those in T’ang and Song dynasty. That’s because Chinese clan rules system based on patrilineal descent society was not efficient in the Goryeo society, and, furthermore, its royal family members were regulated by systematic endogamy. In the Goryeo dynasty, not only sons and grandsons but also daughters and granddaughters of the king were involved in the royal family investiture system. The title of Count (伯) was bestowed upon spouses of princesses. Grandsons and spouses of granddaughters of the king were invested with Sado (司徒) and Sagong (司空). Royal family members whose sons or daughters were married with king or married with king’s children were also invested with royal titles like Duke (公) and Marquis (侯). Structure of kinship and marriage of the royal family in the early and middle periods of the Goryeo dynasty was similar to primary and secondary relatives, which were concepts commonly used in the field of anthropology, and this structure reflected the cognatic descent system in the Goryeo society. The Goryeo royal family members, also called Jewang (諸王), possessed plural statuses of kindred in this structure because of systematic endogamy amongst royal family members. It was meaningless to mention each title and each qualification one by one as T’ang and Song did because in the Goryeo dynasty king’s cousin could be his father-in-law, brother-in-law, or son-in-law.