Loving Defect Is Keeping Love

Meant To Be: Miraculous Stories to Inspire a Lifetime of Love

Joyce Vissell ed. Jeon Kyung-Ja trans.

326 pages, 10,000 won, Open Books.

A marriage is a lifetime commitment. Unlike the past when a couple got married without seeing each other and valued their relationship until a death separated them, a marriage and divorce became easy in present days. The `Marriage and Divorce Statistics in 2001` of the National Statistical Office clearly presents the facts. The divorce cases per 1,000 people have increased to 2.8 in 2001 from 0.4 in 1070, and 370 couples divorced everyday.

Although people are marrying for their love, more than three couples are divorcing out of 10 couples. What is the true relationship between spouses? The author argues that a husband and wife are respectively responsible for their love. Having a trouble and ending with a divorce are because of a spouse`s lack of efforts.

In fact, it is difficult to integrate two people who have been lived in different ways. However, this book contends that a couple can attain love through the intimate feeling of happily accepting each other by admit each other`s defects and through the comfort and peace that are derived from togetherness.

The author delivers the message that `love` is the process of finding familiar parts which are existing in a spouse`s mind, of experiencing the similarities between two people, and of feeling the sameness.

Tae-Hun Hwang beetlez@donga.com