“No Reason to Live Together”

Mrs. Jeong (42 years of age), who was a middle school teacher, quitted her job in 1990 after marrying her ex-husband Mr. Bak (43 years old), employed at an affiliated company of a major corporation. Their marriage ended because of the husband’s harsh words on his wife such as ‘You can’t earn any money!’ ‘You`re incompetent.’ Mrs. Jeong finally decided to have her ‘independence’ and divorced her husband through legal proceedings.

The ‘divorce warning’ has been officially announced in Korean society. The reasons of the divorce in the past used to be the unavoidable circumstances of personality differences or domestic violence but recently various reasons have been added, such as problems of sex along with economic and character issues.

According to the National Statistical Office, the last year`s number of divorce cases tripled from the 53,500 cases reported in 1992, recording 145,300 cases. As a member of OECD, Korea was placed second highest in the group divorce rate following the United States, ahead of England. The group divorce rate is measure of the divorce cases per 1,000 people and Korea has been preceding Japan since 1997.

Besides the ordinary divorce reasons, experts point out the changes in women`s social status as one of the major reasons causing the increase of the divorce rate in Korea. The vigorous activities of women in various fields have risen as the ‘core of the society` leveling with men, and thus the marriage relationships have been greatly distorted from the existing patriarchal relations.

“There were many inconveniences and difficulties after marriage, which I`ve not noticed in the 4-year dating period. Since there were no reasons for me to financially rely on my husband, I got a divorce last year,” stated Ms. Choi (28 years of age) who has an annual salary of 50 million won in a professional position.

Ms. Lee (34 years of age) who divorced last year stated, “My ex-husband started to have an inferiority complex as my salary increased far more than his. Thinking there is no need to live with a husband who tries to release his unreasonable stress on me, I divorced him.”

“The increasing number of women actively requesting divorces is the trend recently,” stated In-Ho Choi, a lawyer who primary handles divorce cases.

He added, “It seems like this is due to the increasing number of women who desire to have leading lives after clearing their unfortunate marriages on the bases of their economical social ability.”

Experts predict that the possibility of dismantling ‘unequal marriage relations’ would greatly increase if the currently discussed abolition of the head of household system gets passed along with the already granted parental rights on women, which were originally given to men only.

Every expert points out in unison that continuous increase in divorce cases is not advisable. They explained that if families, which are basic units of society, get broken easily with divorces, the stability and the security of society will be in danger.

“As the families separate due to the divorces, problems such as the children experiencing mental dilemmas as well as growing up in foster homes will occur. I`m very concerned about what kind of a society it will be when these children from broken families grow up as adults with distorted values,” stated Director Dong-Won Lee of Family Academia.

Bae-Hee Gwok, the head of the Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations stated, “The divorce cases will increase unless the differences in understanding between men and women regarding the roles of husband and wife in a family as well as the expectations of one another are resolved. Like England and Taiwan, our government must take part in preparing some kind of a system to reduce the divorce rate. The effort to understand each other between the couples is necessary as well.”