This article examines the trajectory of discourse on filiality that arose in response to changes in the concept and constitution of the family during the Choson and the way in which popular discourse contested hegemonic discourse on gender and hierarchy. It argues that whereas the prescriptive works reconcile the tension between filial emotions and filial values through an ideology of harmony in which emotions, either through extension or transference, are made to correspond to values, popular narratives such as Chok Songui Chon, Sim Ch`ong ga, Chok Songui Chon, and Pari Kongju either reject the premise of harmony or when they uphold it, it is through the valorization of emotion. Seeing fictional narratives as embodying ``structures of contemporary feelings``, the article also suggests that these vernacular narratives are an evolving ``langue`` of a wide spectrum of people who coped with changes in the family and that as such, they were constituents of changes.