COMMUNITY COMPACT SYSTEM 725defense, and jointly sign a petition requesting his release from jail. The mem-
bers also had to provide funds for a dowry for poor unmarried women, and for
food to the impoverished or starving.^39
Pledges for the Village Granary Kye: Respect for Age. In addition to a con-
ventional emphasis on pious filial devotion, Yulgok's regulations adhered to the
norms of etiquette required between individuals of different age and status groups,
with some modifications. For example, a younger person was required to pros-
trate himself before a respected elder but anI y bow before an elder if he met him
on the road, but Yulgok moved the age difference for prostration down to fifteen
years instead of the twenty-year difference for respected elders in earlier texts.
Anyone who had a reputation for virtue was to be treated as a respected elder.
Pledgesfor the Village Granary Kye: Discriminatory Punishmentfor Slaves.
Yulgok's respect for age, however, by no means transcended the conventions
of status discrimination in the sixteenth century. His regulations also demanded
strict obedience by inferior men (hain), that is, slaves, to their masters (sangjon)
and admonished them "to serve their masters with sincerity and not dare to
deceivc them or hide anything from them in the slightest. If they send you on
an errand, run quickly to do the task, never shirking what may be arduous or
difficult. Any object you happen to get you must respectfully offer to them ...
. Any act of disrespect by an inferior man to his master was to be punished."
Yulgok also built strict discrimination according to both traditional social sta-
tus and age into his detailed prescriptions for five grades of punishment for vio-
lators of compact rules. One illustration of this principle can be demonstrated
in the penalties for assault and battery. The penalty had to depend on the rela-
tive ages of the disputants and whether there was justifiable cause for the attack.
If an elder (c/zangja) struck a younger disputant on just grounds but without
causing injury, he would be given the fifth or lowest degree of punishment; more
severe fourth-degree punishment if the assault was without just cause but did
not cause injury; third-degree punishment if the cause was just but the assault
resulted in an injury, and first-degree punishment if the assault was without just
cause and resulted in injury. On the other hand, if a younger person (soja)
assaulted an elder and caused his injury, he would be reported to the magis-
trate for punishment whether his cause was just or not, and he would suffer
first-degree punishment even if had not injured the elder. Nowhere, however,
was there any discussion of what kinds of acts were to be interpreted as justi-
fiable reasons for committing assault and battery because Yulgok, in traditional
fashion, was content to leave that judgment to the adjudicators rather than attempt
to restrict its definition to a written code. He was more concerned that require-
ments of age and status be accorded their due than that the accused be protected
against unjust punishmenls by arbitrary judges.
In general, Yulgok's rules stipulated lighter punishment for men of higher sta-
tus who violated rules, norms, or statutory law. The language he used to desig-
nate the three statuses involved were ostensibly free of any connotations of
inheriled status because lhe elite was described as sain (scholars) and the low-