Yu's COMMUNITY COMPACT REGULATIONS 749
nothos was not to be allowed to remain seated on a horse if a man of legitimate
birth passed by unless the latter was gracious enough to allow him to remain
seated there. Nothoi would have to show the same respect for men of legitimate
birth that younger commoners had to show to elders. another example ofYu's
violation of the predominance of age in respect relations because of this Korean
practice that had developed only in the early fifteenth century after the found-
ing of the Choson dynasty.
A nothos might not address a legitimate male younger than he was by the famil-
iar vocative of address, "you," and he had to show respect even though his own
family was more prestigious than that of the legitimate man. If he insulted a
man of legitimate birth, the local community association had the duty to
impeach and punish him. Yu believed that this behavior was justified not only
because it was accepted Korean practice, but also because it was practiced in
China as well and was therefore a universal standard of behavior. He felt this
way because he had heard a story about a Korean visitor to China who was amazed
to see an official riding in a carriage on the central part of the road set aside for
officials dismount his carriage to greet a scholar passing by on a side road. When
he asked the reason, a passerby told him that the official did so because he was
the son of a concubine while the scholar was the son of a legitimate wife.
Even though he was convinced that inferior status for nothoi prevailed through-
out the world, in Korea they were unjustly prohibited from holding regular office
because Koreans were obsessed with family pedigree (munji) and thought that
allowing nothoi to hold office would disrupt one's moral obligation (myongbun,
i.e., to maintain proper social status distinctions). Unfortunately, in Korea the
main criterion for selecting men for office was the artificial ability to composc
poems or essays rather than demonstrating virtue and moral worth. If these pri-
orities were reversed, then no men of superior talent in society. including nothoi,
would bc abandoncd in the search for officials, and nothoi would never be inclined
to violate the rules of propriety by insulting men of legitimate birth.22
Yu's treatment of nothoi was similar to his treatment of slaves. Although he
argued for the liberation of both slaves and nothoi from discrimination in the
spheres of public life, he could not bring himself to demand the immediate abo-
lition of slavery or discrimination against nothoi in all instances. Instead he sought
to achieve workable compromises that would grant more dignity to the dis-
criminated without abolishing the basis for that discrimination totally or too
quickly. Yu's reformist impulses in social relations were not radical enough to
be disruptive or violent, and he was not a total egalitarian in any case, but his
social attitudes differed markedly from Yulgok's because he at least challenged
the hereditary privileges of the yangban and the unjust discrimination against
nothoi of yangban and their concubines (whether commoner or slave). Yulgok
thought only of enforcing existing status discrimination through his detailed list
of differentiated punishments. T'oegye was willing to put aside the privileges
of rank and subordinate it to age, but only in the context of the school or the
compact or kye association.