Joseon's class system was hereditary: your standing was fixed at birth and passed to your children. What is fascinating is that the "divisions defined by law" and the "divisions people actually lived by" were not the same. This article lays out those two layers to give a full picture of the Joseon class system.
The legal framework: yangcheonje
The law recognized two broad statuses. There were the yangin (良人) — free people who owed taxes and state duties — and the cheonin (賤人), the base people who did not. The yangin could in principle sit the civil service examination; the cheonin, represented by the nobi, were the lowest class and could be bought, sold, and inherited. This division of society into free and base is called the yangcheonje.
The real structure: banssang and four layers
In practice, society was divided far more finely than the law allowed. Even among the yangin, the ruling yangban and the ordinary sangmin lived worlds apart, and people felt the divide between yangban (班) and commoner (常) — the "banssang" distinction — far more keenly. This real structure is usually summarized as four layers.
① Yangban
The ruling class descended from the civil and military orders. They owned office, land, and slaves, and were exempt from military service — the sadaebu who grounded their status in learning and politics.
② Jungin
The middle stratum between yangban and commoner: interpreters (yeokgwan), physicians (uigwan), astronomers of the Gwansanggam, court painters, and local clerks (hyangni) who handled regional administration — technical professionals and working officials. Many entered office through the technical exam (japgwa) and passed their posts down by inheritance.
③ Sangmin (commoners)
The many made up of farmers, merchants, and artisans. Free people, yet bearing the heavy burdens of tax, tribute, and military duty — the class that in reality upheld Joseon.
④ Cheonin (base people)
Centered on the nobi, and including butchers, entertainers, shamans, and gisaeng — those in so-called base occupations. Of these, the nobi were by far the majority.
Late Joseon: a shaken system
As the treasury collapsed through the Japanese and Manchu invasions, the government issued blank warrants (gongmyeongcheop) and grain payments (napsok), selling office and status for money or grain. Add to this the rise of commoners enriched by commerce and those forging or buying genealogies to dodge heavy military duty, and the number claiming to be yangban swelled dramatically. Studies of local household registers in the late Joseon period show yangban households rising sharply while nobi households fell. The more status was bought and sold, the more the framework of the class system shook from within.
The abolition of the class system
After the ban on inheriting nobi status (1886), the 1894 Gabo Reform officially abolished Joseon's legal class system and slavery. Centuries-old institutions vanished on paper — though notions of status lingered in people's minds and customs for some time afterward.