38 EARLY CHOSON DYNASTYor sons of yangban or sajok by slave concubines to be admitted to membership
in the Poch'unggun unit of auxiliary soldiers. They thus gained an exemption
from military service required of all yang'in while they were attached to the
unit, or were confirmed as yang 'in or of men of "good" status after completing
their tour of duty."
Song also cited another privilege conferred on yang ban, although it was late
in coming. In 1525 their families were exempted from suffering transportation
to the frontier with them if they committed a crime. The range of individuals
permitted this privilege was defined in statutory law and included passers of the
munkwa and mukwa examinations and their sons and grandsons, chinsa and
saengwon degree holders, and those who had a prominent official each in both
the husband and wife's "four ancestors" (sajo), which included their fathers,
grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and spouse's father. The prominent ancestor
was defined in law as any official from the first through fifth civil or military
rank, including provincial governors, and district magistrates.J4
The influence of such a prominent ancestor to confer yangban status on his
descendants did not end with the generational limits defined by statute. Song
June-ho found cases of local yangban in the Namw6n area of Ch611a Province
who retained yang ban status derived from eminent ancestors ten or twelve gen-
erations in the past without any further enforcement of status provided by a
munkwa degree or the possession of government office.^35 Even though one might
argue that 1525 was still too late to indicate that privileges were granted to yang-
ban in the earliest part of the dynasty, Song also discovered in the Kyongguk
taejon (the Choson Dynasty Law Code, compiled in 1469 and amended later in
1474) provisions setting aside tomb-site land and prohibiting cultivation within
its limits for a list of prominent persons in which nonofficials such as holders
of the chinsa and saengwon degrees were included.^36
Even though it was true that the broader use of the civil service examinations
as the primary means for the recruitment of government officials had an indis-
putable effect on expanding opportunity for office, that phcnomenon was
restricted by the power and influence of the yangban families in society at large.
That influence was expressed in two ways: by the ability of a yangban family
to retain its status over many generations even without success in the civil ser-
vice examinations, and the pattern of domination displayed by a relatively small
number of yang ban clans in the competition for the highest munkwa civil degree.
The significance of this situation can be grasped by comparison with the Chi-
nese Ming and Ch'ing dynasties (1368-1644-1912).
Ping-ti Ho found that in the early Ming dynasty access to the highest level of
civil service examinations, the chin-shih examination, expanded so broadly that
40 percent of those who passed were commoners instead of scions of office or
degree holders. Even though that percentage declined to 20 percent in the later
Ch'ing, indicating a narrowing of opportunity for commoners, downward mobil-
ity was far more prevalent than upward mobility, and few gentry families were