Before, in Korea there were legitimate and illegitimate children, but since when did all children become legitimate.
One minister did not have a legitimate son, and, according to custom, he had to adopt someone from his legitimate family in order to transfer his rights and property to him.
His choice fell on his nephew.
On the appointed day, when all the famous people had gathered for this ceremony in the minister’s house and the emperor himself had arrived, the illegitimate ten-year-old son of the owner came out to the guests, holding many sharpened sticks in his hands.
He gave each of the guests one such stick and said:
“Gouge out my eyes if I am not my father’s son.”
- You are the son.
“Then gouge out my eyes if my cousin is my father’s son.”
- But he is not a son.
“Then why are you depriving me, my father’s son, of my rights?”
“This is the law,” they answered him, “and according to the law you are illegal.”
- Or maybe it’s not me, but the law that’s illegal?
- But anything can happen.
—Who writes the laws? - asked the boy.
“People,” they answered him.
-Are you people? - asked the boy.
- We? — The guests consulted among themselves and answered: “People.”
“That means it’s up to you,” said the boy, “to change the wrong law.”
Then the emperor said:
“But the boy is not as stupid as he seems, and why don’t we really change the unjust law?”
And the law was changed, and since then there are no more illegal children in Korea.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru