Chapter 134
His Majesty refused to allow Gwon Je to divorce a wife who had done nothing wrong because he feared that, if he did so, various yangban would use this case as an excuse to abandon their innocent wives.
Records from the Joseon era say that commoners divorced relatively easily.
There are even occasional records of women marrying several times.
However, a yangban divorce could only take place with the king's permission, and once it happened, the woman would be socially ostracized.
Among the yangban, divorce was so rare that it was practically nonexistent.
Yet there were surprisingly people like Gwon Je, a yangban who lived without caring about his social reputation.
In fact, in Joseon, countless yangban would cast their families aside but struggle desperately to preserve their social standing.
That was necessary for their survival.
But Gwon Je was a lunatic who had even abandoned that crucial reputation. Was there any hope that he would value his family from now on?
'Of course not.'
If Gwon Je became a precedent, men who had kept their wives around like playthings, if only because they were pretty when young, would be more likely to spout all kinds of nonsense and request divorces once those wives grew old, wrinkled, and lost their figures.
The women and children divorced in that way would have to live on with a permanent stigma in yangban society.
"However, was it not Gwon Je who was at fault in this case? His wife committed no offense at all, and what fault could those young children possibly have? Yet under Joseon's laws, we could not hold Gwon Je accountable for any crime... But after reading the memorial you submitted, it seems that we can hold Gwon Je accountable. Moreover, we can divide his property and give a share to the wife he divorces, so her livelihood can be fully secured, and since it will be made perfectly clear that neither his wife nor his children did anything wrong... they will not suffer any social stigma either."
"Is it not the case that when a child beats or kills a parent, he is punished for a crime against the bonds of human relations? By the same logic, I believe that when parents kill their children or abuse them to the point of death, that too is plainly a crime, since it violates the duties of human beings."
"Even a mere beast will willingly lay down its life to protect its young, yet the head of a household abuses his wife and children like that. Is he not worse than a beast? It has troubled me that even when such a head of household exists, we could not hold him accountable, but if we proceed as you suggest, we will have grounds to punish that bastard who is worse than a dog or pig, and I am most pleased."
Yi Bang-won lost three children in succession before Yangnyeong Grand Prince was born.
I cannot even imagine how great that grief must have been.
I once attended a funeral for a child who had died before his parents, and there I experienced just how horrific a funeral could be.
The father and mother sobbed and wailed without sleeping for three days straight. Their cries were so loud and sorrowful that, as I listened, I even found them frightening.
I heard that they would sometimes faint in the middle of their wailing.
When they regained consciousness, they would get up and wail again, repeating the process over and over.
Yet Yi Bang-won had also lost three children one after another. What must he have felt...?
Perhaps for that reason, Yi Bang-won was exceptionally generous toward children.
Even during the notorious kickball incident, when the ministers caused an uproar by claiming that the children had cursed the king and the princes and grand princes, he pardoned them, saying, "What did the children know?"
That was despite the fact that, under Joseon's laws, it could have been construed as treason deserving the extermination of three kindreds.
For someone like him, how would "a son of a bitch who beats his child nearly to death while drunk" appear?
A Goryeo ghost, surely.
"There is only one thing that concerns me. Was it Gwon Ram who reported Gwon Je's crimes to you?"
When the Gyeongguk Daejeon was being compiled, children were forbidden from daring to accuse their parents.
When a child reported a parent's crime other than treason, the punishment that should have fallen on the parent was sometimes imposed entirely on the child.
That was because people looked upon it unfavorably, asking how a child could possibly report his parent's crime.
In the early Joseon period, Confucianism was not yet entrenched to quite that extent, but the fact that he had reported his father would cling to Gwon Ram forever like a criminal record.
As his self-appointed teacher, I ought to remove that stain as well.
"I saw Gwon Ram flee and brought him to my house, where I protected him and treated his wounds. However, according to the physician, the children's bodies were covered in bruises and wounds."
"That bastard, lower than a beast, must have beaten his own children almost every day."
"After hearing that, I thought the matter was serious and had the servants investigate. I learned that Gwon Je was drunk almost every day and abused his wife and children, while cherishing and adoring only his concubine, who had once been a gisaeng. How could a man who calls himself the head of a household look down on and abuse his wife and children like that?"
Yi Bang-won had quite a history with women.
Even King Sejong was quite something in that regard, but Yi Bang-won was no slouch either.
That was why his jealous principal wife, Queen Wongyeong, was intensely jealous and unleashed barrages of nagging, which posed a problem under Confucian ethics.
But that was that, and the two of them loved each other until the day they died.
Yi Bang-won even went so far as to mobilize the monks of Hoeamsa to pray for Queen Wongyeong's recovery.
"Taking a concubine is only natural for a sadaebu, but looking down on one's principal wife is something no human being should do."
"Therefore, I merely reported him in order to save the children in that household. I hear that Ram is currently pleading at the Ministry of Justice for them not to punish his father. How could such a child have committed the act of reporting his own father?"
I had told Gwon Ram that I would make his father rot in exile for the rest of his life.
I had also told him that his mother and siblings might face public condemnation over his report against his father, and that he needed to act like a filial son in order to prevent that.
I had hinted that he should pretend to defend his father as diligently as possible.
"You are right. Yes, it is only ignorant, shaggy-haired scholars who know nothing of how the world works who are raising their voices to condemn Gwon Ram, saying that he reported his father. It is all nonsense."
Yi Bang-won looked at me and signaled with his eyes.
'I know that Gwon Ram actually reported his father through you, but the boy is blameless, so I will let it pass.'
Just as expected of King Sejong's father.
He knows far too much.
"Fortunately, no one died, so we cannot sentence Gwon Je, a descendant of a meritorious subject, to death. Therefore, considering his crime of beating and abusing his wife and children as though it were his daily meal, along with all his other crimes, I will order him confined behind a thorn fence for life."
Confinement behind a thorn fence.
It means locking someone alone inside a house and making him live there for the rest of his life.
In short, it means spending one's entire life locked in solitary confinement.
If prisoners are to be believed, even three days in solitary confinement makes them feel as though they are really going to die, and he was going to be confined behind a thorn fence for life...
'Gwon Je is going to make a huge fuss, saying that death would be better.'
I thought Gwon Ram would be delighted when I told him this.
"In truth, it is correct that a child must not accuse a parent, but in cases where a child is being severely abused, we will make an exception. This is because the child is forced to report the parent in order to prevent him from committing the atrocity of killing his child. We will regard it as akin to how Emperor Shun avoided his father when his father tried to kill him, so that his father would not commit murder."
"Your Majesty's grace is boundless."
After saying that, Yi Bang-won left the State Council and spoke as though to himself.
"There are people in this world who pray to Heaven and seek out shamans because they want children, and even people who give enormous sums of wealth to temples and pray to Buddhist monks. Why in the world does Heaven not grant children to such people, yet give them to a person so vicious, less than a beast, only to make them suffer like that...?"
**
After Gwon Ram's matter had been settled, I visited Han Myeong-hoe's house before telling him the result.
For now, that boy had to keep up the act until Gwon Je was officially punished.
Since he was still a child, if he heard that his father would spend his entire life in a painful confinement behind a thorn fence, rather than simply die...
I had a feeling he might not be able to keep up the act.
"I am overwhelmed that Lord Sain, renowned for his uprightness, has come all the way to my home in person."
Han Gi, Han Myeong-hoe's father, was a man who, according to history, would die the following year.
Perhaps for that reason, he had resigned two months ago on the grounds of illness and was resting at home, but his condition looked so poor that it was obvious he did not have long to live.
"Didn't I send word in advance that, with your health in such poor condition, you needn't go to the trouble of dressing in official attire?"
"Ever since I was in the Office of the Inspector-General, the person I have respected above all was you, Lord Sain. So I had hoped to meet you privately and learn from you if an opportunity ever arose... That you have come to visit is a tremendous honor for me."
Young officials' attitudes toward me fell into two categories.
One group would quietly avoid me or flee when they saw me, looking anxious.
The other group consisted of people who respected me deeply, like Han Gi.
I can understand the respect to some extent, but what was with those who tried to avoid me and flee whenever they saw me?
I had no idea why.
All I had done was cut down those who deserved to die, and I had the merit of rescuing all the officials from King Sejong's hell of working overtime.
Why did they dislike me when I had guaranteed them a life with evenings?
"I came this time because there is one favor I would like to ask."
"I am poor, own no wealth, and am ill besides, so I am in no position to help you. I would like to help in every way I could, but..."
"Ah, I did not come seeking that kind of help, so don't worry."
With that, I handed Han Gi a box containing ginseng and other herbal medicines.
His eyes lit up when he examined what was inside.
"Ram, the disciple I took in, told me that an inspector's eldest son was exceptionally bright, so I thought I would like to take him on as a disciple."
Han Gi's eldest son was Han Myeong-hoe himself.
What a good thing it would be if I could properly reform this boy's character and put him to use.