SLAVERY 223so their children could escape base status. For children to caIl strangers parents
and vice versa (to evade the inheritance of base status) was destructive of Con-
fucian family ethics. If the law remained in etTect for a decade, the government
would lose all its slaves and would have to use commoners to perform their ser-
vice, and the number of lawsuits over status would exceed the capacity of the
judiciary agencies. There was no need, however, to change T'aejong's patrilin-
eal rule, which properly conformed to Confucian patriarchal standards; if slave
women could only be prohibited from marrying males of good status, the impor-
tant line between the good and the base could be preserved.
Inspector-General Kim Hyoson then urged the restoration of the matrilineal
law because he obviously wanted to make sure that children of slave women
would not become commoners, but King Sejong rejected both requests because
he believed that his and Maeng's proposed reform was contrary to the intent of
his royal forebears to increase the commoner population. Yet he also noted that
he would rather restore the matrilineal law than prohibit female slaves from mar-
rying commoner men.^63
By 1432, however, Sejong changed his mind and decided to issue just such a
prohibition because female slaves were changing their husbands between men
of slave and commoner status, creating confusion in the determination of sta-
tus, and violating the Confucian principle of treating (real) fathers with the proper
respect that was owed them. He was reluctant, however, to follow Maeng Sasong \
proposal to alter his father's patrilineal rule and return to the matrilineal suc-
cession law.^64 He eventually suggested a modified solution to allow female slaves
to marry commoner males but only if they obtained an official permit (mun lm)
in advance from the village headman as a means of preventing slave women
from falsifying the status of their children's father.^65
Nonetheless, Sejong was alarmed by the prospects of any strict and uniform
adherence to the patrilineal rule. Maeng Sasong, who preferred the matrilineal
rule to block slave women from gaining commoner status for their children by
marrying commoner males, argued that if Sejong was committed to preserving
the patrilineal rule, he should at least reverse T'aejong's exception that prohib-
ited its application to the offspring of slave men and commoner women and allow
those otTspring to inherit their slave fathers' status. Sejong, however, refused to
do it because state law already prohibited intermarriage between slave men and
commoner women. When he hinted that he was prepared to add teeth to this law
by prohibiting all sexual intercourse between male slaves and commoner women
and punishing the violators by making official slaves of their children, his offi-
cials reminded Sejong that if he did so, he would only be encouraging slave
women to continue marrying commoner men because they would rejoice at the
prospect of having their children made official rather than private slaves, since
the opportunity of escape from official slavery was easier. There would be too
many lawbreakers to prosecute, and in less than a century, there would be no
private slaves left. Better to prohibit all intercourse between commoners and
slaves and tum the children ofthe violators over to the private slaveowners, for