A Female Intellectual Who Surpassed Men
Portraying the Image of Woman Dreamed of
by Noble Families in the Chosŏn Dynasty

This book is an English translation of the modern Korean translation of Yuhandang Sa-ssi ŏnhaennok (Dongsan Library Old Books Translation Series No. 3), which records the daily life of Yuhandang (幽閒堂) Sa-ssi (謝氏), a fictional female figure who would have been considered an ideal woman by noble families in the Chosŏn dynasty. There are more than thirty versions of this work extant in Korea, and Keimyung University Dongsan Library possesses four of them in Hangŭl and one in classical Chinese. The Hangŭl version in the old books collection of Keimyung University that was used for this translation is the richest in terms of volume and contains many anecdotes that have been omitted from other versions, giving it a high value as an original source material.
From her childhood, Yuhandang is not only wise but also delights in studying. After her marriage, she attends her parents-in-law with filial piety, carries out ancestor memorial rituals with sincerity, and is greatly praised by her relatives for treating her servants with benevolence. In addition, Yuhandang directly teaches the contents of the Confucian classics to her children and grandchildren and makes her in-laws’ family wealthy by teaching her husband the strategy of saving through thrift. Setting up a ‘righteous storehouse’ with the wealth accumulated in this way, Yuhandang takes the lead in charitably distributing it not only to relatives but also to passers-by, in accordance with level of difficulty of their circumstances.

In this book, the knowledge and methods that would have been necessary for the management of a noble family, such as prenatal education and childrearing, childbirth and hospitality, health care and disease prevention, as well as admonitions in words and deeds, are all described in detail through conversations between Yuhandang and the people around her. In this way it can be an important guide for our understanding of traditional Korean yangban society as well as providing a valuable insight into the general orientation of consciousness and notable characteristics of upper-class women in the Chosŏn dynasty.

“When Yuhandang was nine years old, a fire broke out on one side of Scholar Sa’s house. All the people in the household were shocked, and after the fire was put out, they found that Yuhandang was not in her room. The people searched for her high and low, and then they found that Yuhandang had opened the central door of the ancestral shrine and was standing inside the central doorway with the key in her hand.
When the people asked her the reason, Yuhandang replied, ‘Everyone in the whole family was at their wits end and preoccupied with trying to put out the fire, but as I am a child, I am not able to put out a fire. But if the fire came close to the ancestral shrine, I was worried that in the rush the adults would be falling over themselves trying to open the door, so I opened the central door of the ancestral shrine, and as I could not leave it unattended after already having opened it, I remained to guard it.’
Everyone considered this to be admirable, and also Lord Scholar Sa upon hearing this said, ‘As your thoughts are always outstanding in this way, it is regrettable that you were not born a man.’”

- An anecdote from the book