[Opinion] Custody of Children

Top actress Ko Hyun-jung, who married the only son of a chaebol (conglomerate) family, has initiated divorce proceedings. It seems that she has returned to us as “everyone’s lady” from a “chaebol family’s eldest daughter-in-law.” The couple’s fairy tale romance, which began at their coincidental meeting at a New York Broadway musical, has fallen apart in eight years and six months, surrounded by guessing and gossip. It reminds one of the conclusion of the drama “Hourglass,” which ends with “There is an end to everything.” The official alimony figure is said to be 15 billion won, but in light of the wealth of the husband’s family, many are looking dubiously at the whole matter. The husband will retain custody of their son (age 5) and daughter (age 3).

In the 1970s, it was practical for the husband’s family to have custody over the children of divorced couples. The children were thought of as the family line of succession, rather than an independent people, because paternalism was strong back then. The reason why the movie “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), which is about the weary life of a divorced father bringing up his seven-year-old son and which brought tears to the eyes of U.S. audiences, could not appeal to the Korean people is that they have not actually experienced that kind of reality. In the 1990s, as the divorce rate increased greatly, the women held their grounds, saying that they could not give up their custody, while men have preferred to pass over custody to women to facilitate free and easy remarriage.

Lately, more and more divorced couples are passing custody of their children to one or the other partner. In the Family Court, you can hear the cries of children who have suddenly become orphans because neither parent wanted custody and they went their separate ways. Recently, there was a case in which a couple in their early twenties were refusing to take custody of their child, and the judge angrily shouted at the couple, finally drafting a reconciliation proposal saying, “The mother will bring up the child and the father will send half of his income to contribute to the expense of bringing up the child.” However, this too was rejected by the couple, with the dispute eventually ending when the child’s maternal grandfather agreed to take care of the child.

In the U.S., the mother has almost 100 percent custody of the children in no-fault divorces. When a divorce suit is involved, there is roughly a 50-50 split in custody decisions favoring the mother or the father. Whichever is the case, it is considered a sense of duty that the parent who does not live with the child meet with him or her. When a couple separates, they may become strangers, but a parent and his/her child can never be strangers. For this reason, divorced couples ought not to shirk their duty and responsibility when it comes to their children. If the current situation worsens, we may see divorced wives exacting revenge by publishing books revealing details of their ex-husbands’ love lives, just like some bankrupt Korean chaebol. It has become the time where the duties of divorced couples become just as important as the oath of couples getting married.

Editorial Writer Oh Myung-chul, oscar@donga.com