Yu's COMMUNITY COMPACT REGULATIONS 759one of his clerks was to hold the position of head of the subdistrict (county)
community compact simultaneously, and possibly other clerks may have held
local positions like village elder even though the compact regulations called for
popular choice of local elders or scholars (i.e., hyangban).
The anonymous Japanese author commented that even though commoners
and slaves were admitted into the compact as members, it was still run by the
yangban-scholars because the names of the functionaries were all members of
the sarim (yangban-scholar class). The membership list consisted of just those
types of social categories prescribed by Yu Hyongwon, not only men with civil
and military official rank and office, but also students in official schools, muson,
royal relatives and sons of officials with the protection privilege (including
nothoi), and members of elite capital guards. Only in the two registers for mer-
its and demerits were men of all social strata to be listed. In short, the author
described the compact as "a private compact by the sarim" set up to raise local
morals and mores, and he portrayed it as a spontaneous, private organization of
local self-government that performed some official functions like punishment
of misdemeanors and resolution of lawsuits, and was approved and supported
by the government's magistrate. It was possible for a hybrid institution that com-
bined private activities and public (or official) duties to exist because modern
legal concepts (i.e., especially the necessity for a firm line between public author-
ity and private activity that presumably distinguished the nature of Japanese colo-
nial rule from the late Choson political system) were not strong at the time.
Only the local elite was allowed to attend the quadriannual sessions for the
reading of the compact regulations, except for commoners who also happened
to be minor functionaries in the compact organization. The rules also contained
the usual discriminatory penalties: beatings were reserved for lower persons
(hain), while scholars (saryu) and elders were required only to endure a public
reprimand or move to a lower seat during compact meetings. There was, how-
ever, no repetition ofYulgok's rule to allow sons, younger brothers, or slaves to
suffer a beating in place of an exalted elder.^39 While it would be difficult to assert
that an isolated document such as this one reflected the norms of society as a
whole, it nonetheless indicates that the forms of distinction and social discrim-
ination of the sixteenth century were still holding fast in the late nineteenth cen-
tury. While Yu's work on this subject was probably widely known, the thrust of
his reforms had still not taken hold.
Yu's CONTRIBUTION TO COMMUNITY COMPACTS
The literature on community compacts or, more broadly, on local associations,
established for the moral encouragement, mutual aid, and surveillance, began
at least at the beginning of the dynasty. The inspiration for the movement came
first from the Rites of Chou, and was restimulated by a moralistic reform move-
ment in the late fifteenth century under Kim Chongjik. Although that trend came
to a sudden end with the purge of Cho K wangjo in 15 19, another upsurge of