S. Korea is one of the few non-Muslim countries where an extramarital affair makes a criminal offense. Under the adultery law, the convicted can be sent to jail up to two years. For the last two decades, there have been a few challenges to overturn the law, but the country’s constitutional judges upheld it every time. This issue became huge again in 2008 when a well-known actress Ok So-ri was indicted on charge of adultery.

Short history of Korean Adultery Law

There were various kinds of adultery laws throughout many Korean dynasties as in most countries . The first modern-age law was implemented by the Japanese government in 1908, 2 years before they colonized the country. The law applied the charge unequally to married women.

This adultery law was re-written in 1953, 8 years later after Korea got its sovereignty back, with the intent to establish monogamy, and to protect women’s rights. It was meant that the adultery charge should be applied to men and women equally under the law. However, the reality was different, and it was controversial if the law was beneficial for wives at all as the society was still very patriarchal. In most cases, men still had a better deal in divorce suits because men’s extramarital affairs were generally accepted.

Yet, for a long time, ironically, it was women’s organizations that strongly supported the law. They believed that the law would give wives better chances to receive financial settlement from divorce.

Changes

Korean women’s legal status has been improved and more of them have became economically independent. They don’t tolerate unfaithful husbands and try to hold on unhappy marriage any more. Adultery isn’t something that only husbands could do. More women think they could have extramarital affairs themselves and they actually do.

Naturally, the number of husbands suing against their wives on charge of infidelity has been growing. Now it’s criticized that in many cases, the law is being abused for spouses to get a revenge on each other or to secure financial settlements from divorce courts.

There have been four petitions to abolish the adultery law in 1990, 1993, 2001 and 2008 and all of them were overruled.

Numbers

Every year about 1200 people are indicted under the adultery law, and about 40 percent of them are sent to jail.

The number of divorced in S. Korea in 2007 was 124600.

About 11,240 couples out of them fought over divorce because of infidelity. About 40 percent of those, it was the husband accusing his wife.

There was a survey carried out last year that reported nearly 68% of South Korean men and 12% of women confessed to having sex outside marriage. According to my friends, the number is actually higher, higher enough to make them say that almost everyone does it!

Ok So-ri’s case

Ms. Ok, a famous Korean movie star, filed a petition in 2008 that the adultery law was an infringement of human rights after she was sued by her ex-husband Park Chul.* She admitted that she was guilty under the adultery law after her efforts failed by the constitutional court.

* After she was sued by her ex-husband in 2007, she had a news conference where she confessed that her husband and she only had handful times of sex during their 11-year marriage. She asked him to work on it or divorce her if he didn’t want to try. Mr. Park didn’t show any interest in resolving the issue. He didn’t divorce her, either, and it’s believed he didn’t do it because he needed her money. He always had large credit card bills due, allegedly spent on drinking and “enjoying” at places like “room-salons” or massage parlors. After 11 years of efforts, she got frustrated and had an extramarital relationship with a popular pop singer. Mr. Park refused to reveal his credit card statements. (In the divorce suit that he filed, he was asking for custody, two thousand dollar monthly expense cost for the child, half of their assets, 2 million dollars and three hundred thousand dollar settlement money for him.)

Many people expressed their contempt on Ms. Ok. They didn’t like that Ms. Ok shared her and her husband’s bed time story, especially her husband’s sexual interest, which wasn’t really acceptable to them.

Issues

Did Ok commit such a “crime” that she needs to serve several months in jail?

Do we really want to let the government intrude beneath the quilt like this?

Why shouldn’t women talk about their marital problems, including sex life?

I’m not saying that it’s okay to have an affair because you’re frustrated or lonely, but my question is why it needs to be processed in a criminal court? Why does the society punish Ms. Ok twice when she explicitly “complained” of their sexual life? Isn’t it time to talk about our distorted sex industry if they are so concerned about society order damaged by extramarital affairs?**

** Seriously, the country has nickname of “affair republic”. Look around, there are tons of “love motels”. You won’t be able to find a regular motel in Korea. Whatever motel you go, you will hear noises. There are numerous “room-salons”, where they can sneak out to buy sex after drinks. Thanks to MB who generously doubled business entertainment expenses, now business “men” can go and spend more money at such places!

Too funny…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 under Korean Society.