Ancient Koreans REALLY liked multiple births. There is one record of quintuplets during the Silla Dynasty. The birth of quadruplets was recorded three times during the Silla Dynasty and five times during the Joseon Dynasty. Birth of triplets was recorded 151 times in the Joseon Dynasty. Typically, in these cases, the government gave subsistence to the mothers to help them out.
For example, during the reign of King Munmu of the Silla Dynasty (661-681), a woman gave birth to three sons and a daughter and was given 200 bags of food, worth about 40 million won (approx. $33,700 USD) today. It was an amount women of that era couldn't earn in her lifetime.
More than 800 years later, during the reign of King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty (1418-1450), the typical annual harvest of rice and beans was only 10 bags, but nine years' worth of food was given to families who gave birth to triplets.
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Things I Have Learned Today
Non-FictionI love to read and learn new interesting facts about history or the world. Not everything that I discover has any relevancy in my writing. However, I'd hate for these tidbits of trivia to be lost forever. Think of this as an archive of the fascinati...
