Divorce in South Korea: Doing Gender and the Dynamics of Relationship Breakdown 9780824882952

Citation preview

Di vor c e in S ou th Kor e a

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h awa i ‘i St uDie S on Kor e a

Divorce in South Korea Doing Gender and the Dynamics of Relationship Breakdown

Y e a n-Ju L e e

University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu and Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i

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This publication was supported in part by a generous grant from the Min Kwan-Shik Faculty Enhancement Fund at the University of Hawai‘i Center for Korean Studies. This work was also supported by the Academy of Korean Studies Grant (AKS2012-R76) and the Core University Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2015-OLU-225005). © 2020 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 25

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lee, Yean-Ju, author. Title: Divorce in South Korea : doing gender and the dynamics of relationship breakdown / Yean-Ju Lee. Other titles: Hawai‘i studies on Korea. Description: Honolulu, Hawai‘i : University of Hawai‘i Press, 2020. | Series: Hawai‘i studies on Korea | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019027822 | ISBN 9780824882556 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780824882952 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9780824882969 (epub) | ISBN 9780824882976 (kindle edition) Subjects: LCSH: Divorce—Korea (South) | Marriage—Korea (South)—Psychological aspects. | Sex role—Korea (South) | Man-woman relationships—Korea (South) Classification: LCC HQ938 .L33 2020 | DDC 306.89095195—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019027822 The Center for Korean Studies was established in 1972 to coordinate and develop resources for the study of Korea at the University of Hawai‘i. Reflecting the diversity of the academic disciplines represented by affiliated members of the university faculty, the Center seeks especially to promote interdisciplinary and intercultural studies. Hawai‘i Studies on Korea, published jointly by the Center and the University of Hawai‘i Press, offers a forum for research in the social sciences and humanities pertaining to Korea and its people. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Cover art: TukkataMoji / Shutterstock

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c onte ntS

CHAPTER 1

Why Do Marriages Break Down?

1

CHAPTER 2

Social Context

12

CHAPTER 3

Men’s Provider Anxiety and Self-Identity

31

CHAPTER 4

Women’s Contradictory Role Perceptions

59

CHAPTER 5

The Extended Family: Disharmony

79

CHAPTER 6

Culpable Spouses

99

CHAPTER 7

Implications: Doing Gender

116

Appendix A: Amendments to the Family Laws

125

Appendix B: Qualitative Data and Methodology

135

Notes

149

References

163

Index

177

v

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chapter 1

Why Do Marriages Break Down?

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hy do marriages dissolve? Couples have hundreds of different reasons for ending their marriages, and each divorce has its own unique circumstances. This book is an effort to broadly characterize the causes of marital dissolution in South Korea, a project pursued in the belief that understanding the key marital dynamics behind divorce is important for assessing its social and theoretical implications. Generalizations about the intimate and personal experiences of marriage will inevitably raise questions and doubts. Nevertheless, many people wonder whether there is a general trend—whether a rising incidence of divorce signifies a change in the foundations of marriage and the family caused by a shift toward gender egalitarianism, as some scholars argue1—or simply a consequence of marital relationships deteriorating due to certain structural causes. To examine this issue, South Korea (hereafter, Korea) provides an interesting case, for several reasons. First, the divorce rate rose at an unprecedented pace during the 1990s and early 2000s. The crude divorce rate2 went up from a mere 1.0 in 1990 to 3.4 in 2003, reaching the world’s highest level. After 2003, the rate subsided somewhat over the next few years but hovered around 2.5, which is still similar to or higher than the rates in most Western nations.3 During these two decades, the study period of this book, the crude marriage rate fell drastically from 9.6 to 6.4, the average age at first marriage rose from 28 to 32 for men and from 25 to 30 for women, and the already low rate of total fertility dropped further, from 1.7 to 1.2.4 According to the mainstream literature focusing on the past experiences of Western countries, trends of later and less marriage have much to do with rising individualism or liberalizing attitudes, backed by the expansion of educational and economic opportunities. In Korea, however, as

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in other East Asian societies, the explanation for changes in family practices is not so simple.5 Korea’s surge in the divorce rate occurred in a social and cultural context shaped by patrilineal and patriarchal traditions, and this is another reason that Korea makes for an intriguing case study. Since the promulgation of the first Civil Laws in modern Korea, “custom” has been the backbone of family law, only somewhat mitigated by democratic principles. The legal interpretation of custom or tradition has been a scholarly issue, but initially it generally meant the Confucian cultural traditions inherited from the Chosun era, the five-hundredyear-long period of dynastic rule preceding the modern Korean era.6 In noble families of the Chosun, daughters became chulga oein (strangers after leaving home for marriage) and were taught to “bury your bones in your husband’s family.”7 A newly married woman moved in with her husband’s extended family, occupying the lowest position in a hierarchy determined by generation, age, gender, and consanguinity. Maintaining her last name, a new daughter-in-law was in some ways a provisional family member until she bore sons, who would continue the male lineage. The codes of Confucian ethics that specified “seven vices,” any of which could be grounds to expel a wife or a daughter-in-law from the extended family of her husband, show the vulnerable position of married women.8 At the same time, however, divorce was considered a disgrace to the extended families of both sides. Major legal amendments and cultural transitions have affected Korean family and gender systems over the several decades since the first Civil Laws were enacted. Yet the cultural legacy of patriarchal families lingers to this day. National surveys show that many people still believe that it is best for the family if men work outside the home and women manage the household and that it is harmful to young children if their mother is employed full time.9 The very existence of the central government’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (in Korean, Yeoseong Gajokbu, literally “Ministry of Women and Family”) attests both to widespread practices of gender discrimination within the institution of the family and in workplaces and to the collective will for a movement toward gender equality. In an environment of lingering patriarchy, what other contextual features might contribute to changes in family relations such as

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rising divorce rates? Countering the gender relations within the family, Korea’s rapid economic growth has enabled women to achieve comparable status to men in some sectors. The rate of men’s and women’s college enrollment converged in the 1990s. The percentage of the labor force in professional occupations became higher among women than among men, and the percentage of female lawyers, doctors, and other professionals has increased rapidly in recent decades. The vast majority of unmarried women in their late twenties through forties are employed; this is also the case among unmarried and married men. In contrast, only about half of married women of comparable ages were participating in the labor force before 2000, owing to the gender division of labor within the family.10 In the new century, many middle-aged married women have entered the low-paying service sectors out of economic necessity, possibly to finance their children’s prolonged education and occupational training and sometimes as the sole earners in the family. In other words, prescriptions for women’s roles have become more complex given the conflicting expectations of them as workers and as homemakers; whichever roles women play, their performance will be viewed from contradictory perspectives.11 In short, tensions between rapidly changing social and economic realities and lingering patriarchal norms characterize the Korean context, as chapter 2 discusses in more detail. This book argues that the existing divorce literature falls short of elucidating how these complex societal features have contributed to raising the divorce rate in Korea. As will be discussed in the next chapter and in the final chapters, the book’s findings have implications for other societies as well. By focusing on individual experiences, this book dissects the study subjects’ daily behaviors, words, thoughts, and emotions to elucidate how structural conditions such as polarizing labor markets and rising inequality are experienced by married couples and individuals. Many societies go through similar processes of transitioning to a neoliberal economy, with the rather drastic structural changes that accompany such a transition, and collisions between the results of these economic changes and the prevalent normative systems are common, if not inevitable. Despite the enormous contributions of the existing literature, particularly from two dominant theoretical camps, it has not adequately addressed such collisions.

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One important line of this literature claims that growing individualism or liberalism, especially on the part of women, is a key factor behind historical divorce spikes. On this view, greater educational attainment and economic independence inspire women to liberate themselves from patriarchal oppression.12 The term “expressive divorce” reflects this argument.13 Yet it is not very plausible that changes in traditional attitudes would correspond with the roller-coaster trend of Korea’s divorce rates: the explosive increase and subsequent decrease over the past two decades. Moreover, the value placed on liberalism or individualism is not higher in Korea than in many other societies with lower divorce rates. Another dominant perspective in the literature views divorce as an outcome of social exchange or bargaining between the spouses, where “gains to marriage” is a basis for every divorce decision.14 A string of arguments has been made in this line of theory. Women’s economic independence, that is, women’s paid employment, will lower their gains to marriage and facilitate their departure from unhappy marriages.15 Adoption of no-fault divorce laws will also facilitate divorce; for example, the cost of divorce for Korean wives declined after the 1991 amendments that raised the share of assets allocated to the divorcing wife and declined again after the 2008 amendments that strengthened the rules enforcing nonresident fathers’ payment of child support. Yet this gainsto-marriage explanation is not very plausible in the Korean context, as the rate of married women’s labor-force participation is relatively low in Korea; what’s more, it is higher in most other OECD countries where divorce rates are lower. Further, the recent literature shows that husbands as well as wives with lower incomes are significantly more likely to initiate divorce than are their counterparts with higher incomes, refuting the premises of the gains-to-marriage explanation.16 It is only logical that, other things being equal, a lower cost of divorce would increase the chances of people leaving a marriage, but this book speculates that the key to explaining divorce in Korea lies elsewhere.

This Book: R el aTionship Dy na m ics The existing theories that highlight individualism or gains to marriage implicitly assume that there are always some bad marriages in a

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population and that in earlier times leaving a bad marriage was discouraged by institutional and/or economic constraints. Hence, the argument runs, if rising expectations for marital happiness and better chances of economic survival after divorce have raised the threshold of marital quality that people require, then economic growth and cultural democratization will lead to more bad marriages being dissolved.17 But this logic is akin to assuming a random distribution of marital quality in the population, a premise that eliminates the need to look for a systematic explanation of good and bad marriages. In short, the dominant theories have (implicitly) steered divorce research to focus on the act of leaving and to forgo theorizing relationship dynamics that lead to marital dissolution. No-fault divorce laws may also have inspired sociologists to denounce the assumption that divorce is typically preceded by relationship failure, even though a unilateral decision or mutual agreement to part does not necessarily indicate a lack of preceding interpersonal conflict. Some studies include one or more variables representing marital satisfaction or marital quality in their analysis, but the weakness of this approach is that these variables of marital quality do not capture the full dynamics of relationship breakdown.18 Even though they are almost always found to be significant, their inclusion does not much alter the effect of the other risk factors. Hence, marital satisfaction or marital quality has been treated as just one of the risk factors, and no research has yet theorized the mechanism through which marital quality becomes poor enough to lead to the dissolution of the marriage. The omission of relationship dynamics from divorce theory leaves an important portion of the pathways between known risk factors and marital outcomes unaccounted for. Research interpreting the risk factors alternates rather arbitrarily between reasoning about the decision to leave a marriage and speculation about the level of relationship quality. Although empirical distinctions between the two processes—relationship breakdown and the decision to divorce—may not be straightforward, conceptual clarification is crucial, as any covariates of marital dissolution can have conflicting effects on the two processes. To take a hypothetical example, a wife’s earnings may help to maintain a high standard of living, which can support a high-quality marital relationship and thus stabilize the marriage, but at the same time her earnings

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may increase her chance of leaving the marriage in case of marital problems. This book argues that it is important to make a conceptual distinction between the process of relationship breakdown and the process of deciding to divorce—and to theorize the former process. Whereas the divorce literature treats marital quality (or the dynamics of marital relationships) as an invisible force affecting the probability of divorce and focuses on the latter, this book focuses on the former process and presumes that either spouse (or both spouses) will make the decision to leave the marriage when their marital problems become severe. This book postulates that the breakdown of marital relationships consists of an initial violation of the marital contract19 by one spouse and consequent reciprocal contract breaches, which can occur over a short or long period of time. It explains the process of relationship breakdown as the result of daily practices of identity verification, a concept adopted from identity control theory. As described in detail in appendix B, the grounded theory method, applied to narratives from in-depth interviews and court rulings, was instrumental in formulating this thesis. The collected narratives strongly indicate that perceived threats to married persons’ self-identity as a husband or wife motivate them to engage in conduct designed to restore their self-identity and that such conduct is often detrimental to marriage. Among the various identity theories formulated by symbolic interactionist theorists, identity control theory best fits this study’s data in that it deals with actors’ compensatory behaviors to support their identity, whereas other theories focus on the formation and development of self-identity per se.20 Identity control theory postulates that individuals who perceive gaps between their identity standards and actual performance attempt to restore their self-identity by modifying their perception input—in other words, by engaging in compensatory acts.21 Burke and Stets (2009) refer to this process as identity control or identity verification. Earlier role theorists similarly posited that discrepancies between role expectations and role behaviors motivate actors in dyadic relationships to act to reduce the gaps.22 Thus, the first task in formulating a framework for understanding relationship breakdown (that is, the thesis of identity verification) is to determine what constitutes identity standards among married men and women. An identity as the holder of a social position is formed through internalizing the roles prescribed for that position by cultural

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norms.23 Thus, it is likely that one’s expectations about gender roles define one’s identity standards as a spouse.24 Breadwinning is the primary role assigned to husbands, and it will be the identity standard for most husbands. In contrast, given the complex set of roles and contradictory prescriptions for women in general and wives in particular, individual wives’ identity standards are more likely to be based on personal conceptions. These asymmetric gender-role prescriptions are consistent with the literature on gender systems across contemporary societies: Women have moved into traditionally male activities/jobs, while men have not made comparable moves.25 Likewise, “liberal gender-role attitudes” in the literature often refers to liberal attitudes toward women’s roles.26 For decades, expectations about husbands’ breadwinning roles have remained steadfast, even with growing expectations that husbands participate in other familial roles as well and that wives also contribute to family incomes.27 According to identity control theory, married persons who perceive gaps between their identity standards and their role performance engage in compensatory acts that will restore their self-identity. If the husband’s identity standard is being the breadwinner, failing or worrying about failing to perform the provider role will pose major threats to his selfidentity. Case after case in chapters 3 through 6 suggests that husbands’ provider anxiety (that is, perceived threats to their self-identity as providers) is the key factor behind their breaches of the marital contract (their “compensatory acts”).28 Wives, however, may engage in breaches of the marital contract whether or not they have access to resources through relatively stable employment or wealth. That is, changing norms for wifely roles allow the wives to hold idiosyncratic perceptions about their role performance, and their perceptions and behaviors can be contradictory in that both access to resources and the lack thereof may lead women to trigger relationship breakdown. As will be shown, there are diverse forms of compensatory acts that are harmful to the marital relationship. Three major forms include self-indulgence (for example, computer gaming, heavy drinking, gambling, extramarital affairs, conspicuous consumption), exercising control over the spouse (ranging from simply complaining, to constraining the spouse’s daily life, to verbal or physical abuse), and, to a lesser extent, retreating from the relationship. Still another form may be financial

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mismanagement, fueled by an intention to provide a higher standard of living than the family’s income can afford. It is important to note that across the cases these initial breaches of the marital contract, that is, identity-restoring acts, bring about emotional reactions from the spouse and lead to reciprocation of negative responses in everyday lives. In the end, either spouse might initiate divorce. Two particular forms of identity-restoring conduct, spouse assault and infidelity, serve as grounds for divorce in many judicial cases. The premises of identity verification have received support in the fields of family and gender studies. Among these premises is the thesis of gender-deviation neutralization; for instance, men who hold traditionally female occupations or earn less than their wives are less likely to participate in housework, a supposed female task.29 The thesis of masculinity overcompensation is another; men react strongly to demonstrate their manly traits when their masculinity is threatened, but women are less responsive to threats to their femininity.30 Munsch’s (2015) study is pioneering in using identity theory to predict marital infidelity, which is one major pathway to divorce; it finds that among couples with nontraditional role arrangements (that is, where the husband earns less than the wife), the lower the husband’s relative earnings, the higher the chance of his infidelity. For husbands with limited earnings, infidelity is one strategy to restore their masculine identity. Among breadwinning men (who earn more than their wives do), an increase in their relative earnings increases their chance of infidelity, but only slightly. This curvilinear relationship between relative earnings and men’s infidelity is consistent with Burke and Stets’s (2009) argument. According to Munsch, for women, whose self-identity is arguably more robust, infidelity is generally less frequent than among men. However, among women as well, a high degree of economic dependency increases infidelity, but unlike men, high-earning breadwinning women show the lowest level of infidelity. These results show a complexity in expectations about women’s roles and do not support bargaining theory.31 Also supporting the thesis of identity verification are previous findings that the risk of divorce increases when husbands have traditional gender norms,32 while flexible norms stabilize marriages.33 Identity vulnerability among husbands with rigid breadwinner norms may become particularly problematic in the millennial marriage cohort, which is

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Why Do Marriages Break Down?

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positioned in the volatile environment of the globalizing neoliberal economy. Couples with more flexible gender norms may be better equipped to maintain stable marriages in rapidly restructuring economies.34 It is noteworthy that the normative prescriptions for the roles of husband and wife discussed so far apply largely to couples in relatively early stages of the family life cycle, namely, couples who are in the process of bearing and rearing children or anticipate doing so soon. The literature and preliminary analysis suggest that later in life, when couples are less bound by such family obligations, the marital dynamics leading to divorce can be very different.35 Therefore, this book excludes from the discussion divorces at later middle ages or older, often referred to as hwanghon ihon (literally, “golden-dusk divorce”). For theoretical clarity this book narrows down the scope of data yet further, with three criteria in all: first, that the divorce occurred during the childbearing/ childrearing stage, that is, both spouses in their forties or younger at the time of divorce; second, that the divorce occurred roughly within the two decades between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s; and third, that the divorce occurred in a first marriage. The mid-1990s and the early 2000s were the years when the crude divorce rate was at its peak, and the period could not be further differentiated given the limited number of sample cases.

oRga niz aTion of Th e Book This chapter has introduced the research issue and has discussed how the book might fill a gap in the literature with its proposal of a new theoretical framework. Chapter 2 describes the social context of Korea. After a short introduction providing a comparative perspective, the chapter explains the family law governing divorce, to demonstrate the procedural ease of divorce in Korea, which has bearing on how the divorce rate was able to surge so dramatically over such a short time period. Appendix A provides a fuller description of the foundational principles and amendment history of the family law, called the Kin-Inheritance Law, which is part of the Civil Law (including its promulgation in the late 1950s and the gradual conversion from patrilineal and patriarchal rules to more democratic principles). The remainder of chapter 2 highlights a

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few aspects of social change relevant to divorce trends in recent decades: the expansion of tertiary education and class bifurcation in marriage and divorce, accompanying changes in attitudes toward marriage and divorce, and the circumstances of alternative unions (including cohabitation and remarriage). Chapters 3 through 6 provide analyses of empirical data on divorce in Korea. Some readers, particularly those familiar with social science research, will want to read appendix B, which is devoted to methodological issues, before moving on to these empirical chapters. Appendix B describes the three types of data: primary and secondary in-depth interviews and court rulings, which were all in Korean and translated into English by the author. While introducing the data, the appendix explains how the two pathways to legal divorce (mutual consent and fault-based litigation) in Korea produce court rulings that provide very useful data for this book. Appendix B also explains the qualitative methods of the analysis. While relying on the grounded theory method to interpret the data, this book takes a holistic approach and examines, to the extent possible, the entire marital trajectory in each case. Chapters 3 through 6 analyze the cases and classify them into several types. Chapter 3 explores various circumstances in which husbands with provider anxiety initiate the acts that eventually break down their marriage. Chapter 4 presents circumstances in which the wife provides the initial triggers eventually leading to the marriage’s dissolution. Whether the husband’s or the wife’s, all these initial acts can be understood as acts of identity verification, that is, as attempts to restore self-identity as defined by the individuals’ role expectations as spouses. Chapter 5 presents cases where extended family members, mostly the parents of the spouses, are involved in the marital dissolution and speculates about the social environment that enables parents to meddle with their adult children’s marriages. Chapter 6 presents additional cases where, although the marital dynamics are similar to those described in the previous chapters, spousal culpability is more obvious, serving as the legal grounds for the divorce. Chapter 7 concludes the book by summarizing the findings and speculating on their implications for divorce theory and for families in Korea and possibly other societies. This book makes a conceptual distinction between the process of relationship breakdown and the decision

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to leave or act of leaving a marriage. While the existing literature heavily focuses on the latter, this book argues that the former should be better theorized as the social cost of divorce shrinks and the value placed on individualism expands in contemporary societies. The chapter concludes that marital breakdown is an outcome of married persons doing gender in their everyday lives.36 It speculates that flexible perceptions about gender-role arrangements are needed for marital stability.

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Social Context

K

orea has made impressive economic gains since the 1960s. The per capita GDP increased by more than ten times between 1960 and 1996, the year Korea joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Even though the economy continued to grow after 1996, the next fifteen years or so were a period of considerable turmoil and extensive neoliberal restructuring of the national economy, supposedly toward a more efficient regime. In response to the 1997 economic crisis, Korea accepted a huge loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which pressured the country to adopt a set of liberalizing measures including flexibilization of the workforce. Government policies shifted to allow companies to convert a large percentage of their workforce from regular to irregular employment and to allow them to fire workers more easily through reduction-in-force procedures. Job insecurity became a new norm in the labor market.1 The economic turmoil that followed in 2003 (related to massive credit-card defaults) and 2008 (related to the global recession originating from Wall Street) further damaged job security among workers. Thus, the period of this study, from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s, covers a time when the old practice of lifetime employment was waning. As in many other countries, income gaps between skilled and unskilled workers, between the financial and manufacturing sectors, between large and small companies, and between regular and irregular workers have widened in Korea since the 1990s. In the early 2010s, more than one-half of all workers in the country earned less than two thousand US dollars per month, whereas in Seoul, the capital city, the median price for an average-size apartment unit was more than four hundred thousand US dollars (that is, more than fifteen years of the average salary).2

12

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The economy’s dramatic ups and downs have been accompanied by similarly extreme social changes, which some Korea specialists have termed “compressed modernity.”3 This refers to social changes being so rapid that what are considered “traditional” social features coexist with “modern” features. In other words, social evolution is compressed to the extent that many contradictory norms and practices coexist. Modernization perspectives that assume a linear progression from traditional to modern family practices have long been influential, but their explanatory power is compromised in the context of compressed modernity, whether in Korea or in other societies. Indeed, demographers assert that uneven changes in the institution of the family (where practices are highly gendered) and other institutions (such as the labor market and education, where greater equality has been achieved between genders) are responsible for exceptional patterns in fertility and marriage/divorce trends in East Asia and in some countries in the West. For example, on this view, low fertility in Italy and Spain and in most East Asian countries is the outcome of a disjuncture between gender-egalitarian educational attainment and gendered family relations/roles, whereas social changes are more even across these institutions and fertility somewhat higher in other Western European countries. Likewise, demographers hypothesize that low marriage rates in East Asia, particularly among highly educated women, are related to the combination of norms for gender-specialized roles in the family and gender-egalitarian legal and social status, including equal access to education.4 Researchers have found that in East Asia, extensive changes to the family, including less marriage and very low fertility, have taken place without being preceded by rising individualism, contrary to the literature based on Western experiences. The framework of much of that literature postulates that in the past, individuals and families were limited by economic and institutional constraints. Thus, divorce would be rare in general but more likely among the wealthier and better educated than among their counterparts with fewer resources, as only the privileged could afford life after divorce. Contemporary trends, however, appear to show the opposite pattern: across societies, the wealthier and more educated are more likely to get married and stay married. Plausible

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explanations for such trends are limited. While some studies argue that the class pattern in marriage and divorce has indeed reversed over time, others suggest that the apparent change is attributable to shortcomings in the earlier framework and observations. The latter camp suspects an ecological fallacy; that is, while increases in individualism and opportunities for education and employment parallel rising divorce rates over time, at any given time the wealthier and more educated were never more likely to divorce. Whichever claim is closer to the truth, the existing literature has not adequately explained the current trend of widening gaps in marriage and divorce between couples with higher and lower socioeconomic statuses. It is time to look more carefully into how changes in structural conditions interact with, or affect, the normative expectations of the family system to produce life outcomes. Family practices in contemporary societies may have unique aspects in different contexts, but they also show commonalities, including the class patterns of marriage and divorce. For references, consider some divorce statistics. In the United States, after a rapid increase from the late 1960s through the 1970s, the crude divorce rate reached a peak in 1980 at 5.3, and it has steadily declined since then, owing to the dropping rate among couples with college education. The rates in 1990 and 2013 were 4.7 and 3.3, respectively. In Japan, the divorce rate rose and fell much as it did in Korea (as shown in chapter 1), but at more modest magnitudes, with rates of 1.3, 2.3, and 1.8 in 1990, 2002, and 2013, respectively.5 All three of these societies share a common pattern of class differentials and a spike followed by a decline in divorce rates; however, in Japan and Korea the peak comes two decades or so later, and the entire duration of the rise and fall is much shorter than in the United States. A discussion of the social context in each country is outside the scope of this book, and the rest of this chapter focuses on Korea. This chapter discusses selected aspects of social trends that are believed to be related to Korean divorce trends and conducive to marital dynamics leading to dissolution. First, the chapter briefly touches on the procedural ease of divorce, which enabled the drastic changes in the divorce incidence; in other words, the divorce rate was able to go up when certain social conditions surfaced. The next section deals with the parallel trends of educational expansion and the widening class

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divide in divorce rates. The third section discusses how relaxed attitudes toward divorce (and marriage) might have followed, not preceded, the rising divorce incidence. Fourth, the chapter briefly examines the trends in remarriage and cohabitation, family behaviors that usually parallel rising divorce rates. Most of the analyses on attitudinal and behavioral trends were conducted by the author based on quantitative data from various national surveys, censuses, and government records. Some readers may prefer to skip this chapter until they have read the other chapters, but they should bear in mind that the background provided here informs the analysis that follows. However, the current chapter’s discussion is largely based on quantitative analysis, and nondemographers may find it heavy going. In addition, in attempting to explain the social background of marital breakdown, this chapter reviews what may seem an eclectic selection of social trends. In short, the information presented here may be helpful but is not essential to grasp the following chapters’ discussion.

Di voRce l aw: pRoceDu R a l ea se Korea’s first Civil Law was promulgated in the 1950s. Until the mid2000s, when a few moderate measures were added, mainly to protect the well-being of children, the family law (or Kin-Inheritance Law) posed few barriers to couples seeking divorce if both spouses consented. They needed only to fill out a one-sheet registration form and, initially, to put their personal stamps on the form to verify the consent of both. From the 1970s, however, the two spouses had to appear in court to confirm their free consent in front of a judge. Then, between 2006 and 2008, depending on region, a new requirement of a waiting period was added to the divorce procedure. In 2008 another regulation was added that required a written statement on after-divorce childrearing, specifying the arrangements for custody and child-support payments.6 If both spouses do not consent, one spouse can bring the case to court. Judicial divorces require one spouse (the defendant) to be the primary culprit, following fault-based rules defined by the six grounds for divorce listed in Article 840 of the Civil Law: (1) “spousal infidelity,” (2) “malicious desertion,” (3) “severely unjust treatment by spouse or by

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parent of spouse,” (4) “severely unjust treatment of parent by spouse,” (5) “missing for three years or longer,” and (6) “other significant reasons making it difficult to continue the marriage.” However, these faultbased rules have not played a role in suppressing divorce rates. Most divorces are by mutual consent, with less than one-fifth of all divorces done through litigation. Appendix A summarizes the major amendments to the family law, some of which may be directly or indirectly related to divorce trends. The amendments reflect the societal shift from a patriarchal and patrilineal system toward democratic relations between genders and between generations. If rising individualism were an important factor boosting divorce, as modernization theory argues, such a change could have raised the divorce incidence, but evidence is limited for any systematic linkages between the trajectories of family laws and divorce trends.7

ch a nging TR en Ds in eDucaTion, occ u paTiona l sTaT us, a n D m a R R i age The analysis in this section uses two-percent samples from individuallevel data of four decennial censuses, 1980 through 2010. The author conducted an analysis of the trends in education, employment, and marital status by gender and the associations among them. The analysis was restricted to ages 25 to 49.8 Trends in Educational Attainment: The most notable trends related to the rapid socioeconomic development of the country are ever more prolonged schooling and the recent reversal in the gender gap in college-enrollment rates.9 School-advancement rates in Korea have risen rapidly over the past several decades, first from primary to secondary school, and then from secondary to tertiary school. By 1990, virtually all primary-school graduates advanced to middle school, and more than 95 percent of middle-school graduates proceeded to high school; meanwhile, one-third of high-school graduates progressed to college, either junior college or a four-year university. Since then, the college-advancement rate has risen sharply to more than 70 percent by 2010, with a ratio of one to two between junior colleges and four-year universities. Thus,

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the enrollment rate in college increased from 11 percent in 1980 to 70 percent by 2010.10 The once-large gender gap in school-advancement rates shrank rapidly during the 1970s and 1980s. By 1990, the gender gap in college-advancement rates was within a couple of percentage points. It subsequently slightly increased and then decreased again, to be reversed by 2010, with women’s rates of college attendance exceeding men’s by three percentage points. As a cumulative result of these trends, educational attainment has risen dramatically among the working-age population, ages 25 to 49, who are the focus of this book. People with middle-school or less education comprised two-thirds of the population in 1980, but by 2010 this group comprised only about 5 percent. The proportion of people with a high-school education slightly increased and then decreased, showing no major changes overall. Meanwhile, the proportion of the population with either a two-year or a four-year college education increased from a mere 10 percent in 1980 to 55 percent (60 percent for men and 50 percent for women) in 2010. The expansion of college education and gender equality in educational attainment has several implications for family behaviors. Trends in Employment Status by Education: Over the same period, between 1980 and 2010, the rate of employment among this same age group, 25 to 49 years, rose by about 7 percent, owing to a considerable increase among women, from approximately 40 percent to 60 percent, which more than offset a slight decrease among men. These overall trends, however, mask different trajectories by people’s educational attainment. When this age group is divided into three educational levels (middle school or less, high school, and college), in both genders, the college educated show a higher employment rate than their less educated counterparts, and the gaps increase over the years. Among men, in 1980, the employment rates were similar across the educational groups, but the percentage employed declined by the largest margin among the middle-school educated and by the least margin among the college educated. This indicates that it is increasingly difficult for men with poor human capital to find a job in the new knowledge-based economy. Further examination of employment trends by marital status demonstrates that among college-educated men, the employment rate of each marital

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status group did not change, and the decline in their employment rate is entirely related to an increasing proportion of college-educated men being never married. On the other hand, the employment rate actually declined among never-married men with a high-school education and among all marital statuses of men with middle-school or less education. In other words, while the number of middle-school-educated men decreased to a small minority, they emerged as an underclass segment with the lowest rate of employment; these men are also least likely to be married. Similar trends are found among women, with college graduates being employed at a higher rate than those with high-school or less education, and the gap greater in 2010 than in 1980. Such educational divergence comes largely from changes among married women: In the 1980s, college-educated married women were least likely to participate in the labor force, but by 2010, educational differences in employment all but disappeared among married women. Among the never married, collegeeducated women have shown the highest employment rates throughout the period. Also during this time period, never-married and previously married women have been more active in workforce participation than have married women at all educational levels. Thus, the gaps in women’s employment rates by marital status have decreased considerably in recent years. Trends in Occupational Distribution by Education: The occupational structure did not change as fast as education expanded. This implies that workers of a given level of education were likely employed in lower-status occupations in 2010 than in 1980. For example, among college-educated men aged 25 to 49, the percentage with clerical occupations decreased, and the percentage with blue-collar occupations increased. The percentage of college-educated women in professional/technical occupations slightly decreased and in clerical occupations increased over the same period. For workers with a high-school education, noticeable increases were observed in unskilled manual occupations among women and in skilled manual occupations among men, with a shift out of clerical and service occupations for both genders. For workers with middle-school or less education, an increase of blue-collar occupations was also observed, paired with a noticeable decrease in agricultural occupations.

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Despite these generally downward trajectories in occupational status for each of the three educational groups, the overall distribution of occupational status has improved. Overall, more male and female workers held managerial, professional, technical, or clerical occupations in 2010 than before. In summary, with the trends of rapid educational expansion and increasing labor-force participation among college-educated married women, men with less education have lost their position in the labor market. Men lacking educational credentials are increasingly likely not to work, and their occupational status has deteriorated. The minority of men who have middle-school or less education has emerged as an underclass, lagging behind the rest of the population in their employment, occupational, and marital status, as will be shown later in this chapter. Trends in Marital Status by Education: The trends in educational expansion (and occupational structure) just described are accompanied by widening differences in marital status by educational attainment. The analysis in this section uses the same data from the four decennial censuses conducted between 1980 and 2010, but the sample is limited to a smaller age group, 30 to 39, in order to isolate the net effect of educational attainment and avoid confounding by correlations among younger ages, college education, and never-married status.11 For men, an increase in the percentage of those who never married was noticeable for all educational levels but particularly remarkable among middleschool or less educated men (table 1). The percentage of those who had divorced also increased remarkably among men with middle-school or less education and also among men with high-school education; both these percentages in 2010 are about seven times what they were in 1980. These increases are particularly striking given the dramatic amplification of the percentages of the never married, which reduces the exposure to the risk of divorce. By 2010, college-educated men were less likely to be never married and less likely to be divorced than high-school or less educated groups of men.12 Meanwhile, in 1980, college-educated women aged 30 to 39 were very slightly more likely to be never married and equally likely to be divorced compared to their less educated counterparts, but in 2010 they were quite a bit more likely to be never married and less likely to

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1990 12.1 85.1 0.7 2.1 100.0 18,843 7.0 91.8 0.2 1.0 100.0 31,804

1980

5.1 93.4 0.6 0.9 100.0 25,789

3.8 95.5 0.2 0.6 100.0 16,201

Men

19.4 78.1 0.2 2.3 100.0 36,835

33.6 60.1 0.7 5.6 100.0 6,489

2000

40.2 55.4 0.2 4.2 100.0 25,784

60.5 32.7 0.3 6.5 100.0 1,726

2010

3.8 92.7 1.5 2.0 100.0 8,854

1.2 94.1 3.4 1.3 100.0 38,613

1980

4.3 92.8 1.2 1.7 100.0 27,073

1.9 93.3 3.1 1.8 100.0 32,101

5.5 90.8 0.9 2.8 100.0 45,172

4.0 88.4 2.7 4.9 100.0 10,368

Women 1990 2000

Percentage Distribution of Marital Status by Educational Attainment, Year, and Gender, Ages 30–39

Middle School or Less Never married Currently married Widowed Divorced Total (%) No. of cases High School Never married Currently married Widowed Divorced Total (%) No. of cases

TaBle 1.

14.9 78.4 0.7 6.0 100.0 30,184

20.7 69.1 1.3 8.9 100.0 1,592

2010

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(Cont.) 1990 6.7 92.7 0.1 0.5 100.0 17,776 8.3 90.2 0.3 1.2 100.0 68,217

1980 4.5 94.9 0.2 0.4 100.0 8,917

4.6 94.3 0.4 0.7 100.0 50,772

Men

18.5 79.4 0.2 1.9 100.0 79,784

15.0 84.1 0.1 0.9 100.0 36,457

2000

38.2 59.4 0.1 2.3 100.0 77,905

36.4 62.3 0.1 1.2 100.0 50,058

2010

Data Source: Korean Census two-percent samples, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010

College Never married Currently married Widowed Divorced Total (%) No. of cases All Never married Currently married Widowed Divorced Total (%) No. of cases

TaBle 1.

1.9 93.8 2.9 1.4 100.0 50,564

5.6 92.3 1.0 1.2 100.0 3,060

1980

3.6 92.7 2.1 1.6 100.0 66,284

8.7 89.7 0.8 0.9 100.0 7,321 7.2 89.2 1.0 2.6 100.0 78,775

11.7 86.5 0.4 1.3 100.0 23,490

Women 1990 2000

20.5 75.4 0.4 3.7 100.0 76,894

24.1 73.6 0.3 2.1 100.0 44,691

2010

22

C h a p te r 2

be divorced. Marital-status differences between the two groups of less educated women were minor. Overall, the magnitude of the temporal change by educational level is much smaller among women than among men (table 1). In sum, in recent years the educational differentials in marital status were much larger among men than among women. This gender discrepancy could be attributable to the norm of female hypergamy (that is, marriage between a woman with lower socioeconomic status [SES] and a man with higher SES), which creates a marriage challenge for men with the lowest education levels and women with the highest education levels. Meanwhile, age hypergamy of those in their thirties results in more never-married men than never-married women. Further, divorce is increasingly more likely among husbands with high-school or less education but is less sensitive to a wife’s educational attainment. Combining these factors, in 2010 men with fewer educational credentials were less likely to enter into a marriage and, once they did find a spouse, were more likely to experience marital dissolution13 compared to any other groups by gender and education. Such gender-by-education differentials were not observed in 1980, when the vast majority of people married and stayed married.14 Similar patterns of increasing educational differentials in marital status were also observed among men and women in their late twenties and in their forties (results not shown).15 In summary, the other side of educational expansion is that men who fall behind others in their educational attainment are increasingly unemployed (or underemployed) and unmarried. Whatever the causal direction, low education, unstable employment status, and unmarried status (either never married or previously married) are associated. Given the preference for female hypergamy, a trend toward gender equality in educational attainment results in a trend toward homogamy (that is, marriage between spouses with equal levels of education) among the college educated, which implies widening gaps in economic status between couples with and without college education. The expanding public welfare programs, a major political issue in the country in recent decades, are still relevant to only a small segment of the population, the poorest, and do not address income inequality per se. Lastly, these aggregate trends provide important parameters when generalizing the findings from the case studies in later chapters.

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liBeR a lizing aTTiT u Des Towa R D m a R R i age/Di voRce a mong Th e less eDucaTeD Attitudinal changes usually complement behavioral trends, as the two processes facilitate each other. Not surprisingly, studies report that Korean attitudes toward marriage and divorce have liberalized in the past few decades, paralleling the trends of rising divorce and declining marriage rates.16 The question is whether a temporal sequence can be discerned between the two trends, which would imply a causal direction. Modernization theories broadly assume that liberalizing values bring about behavioral changes. In this section, the trends in attitudinal changes by educational attainment suggest the possibility of causal influence in the opposite direction. The data are from two cross-sectional surveys conducted twelve years apart, the 1998 and 2010 Social Statistics Surveys, with nationally representative samples of tens of thousands of respondents.17 The discussion here focuses on two questions asked in both surveys: “What do you think about divorce?” and “What do you think about marriage?” This analysis groups the responses as reflecting conservative or liberal attitudes. For the question regarding divorce, two responses, “one must never divorce” and “one would rather not divorce,” are combined to represent conservative attitudes, while three responses, “one may divorce depending on the circumstances,” “one would rather divorce when there are reasons,” and “one must divorce when there are reasons,” are combined to represent liberal attitudes. Similarly, for the marriage question, two responses, “one must marry” and “one would rather marry,” are combined to represent conservative attitudes, and three responses, “it is fine either marrying or not marrying,” “one would rather not marry,” and “one must not marry,” are combined to represent liberal attitudes. Conservatism refers to attitudes that highly value the marriage institution; liberal attitudes refer to those emphasizing individualistic choices. The results are revealing. First, in each subgroup by gender and educational attainment, younger people were more liberal than their older counterparts, and these age gaps have slightly narrowed over time; however, age patterns are not presented here. Instead, age distributions are

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standardized across the time periods, and the age effect is controlled, as the main focus is on educational differences. Second, as expected, both types of attitudes liberalized considerably among all subgroups by gender and education (figure 1). The percentage reporting liberal attitudes increased by 5 to 16 percentage points.18 As a consequence, by 2010 more than half of women and about four in ten men aged 25 to 49 approved of divorce, and just about half of women and approximately one-third of men approved of an unmarried lifestyle. Third, women showed considerably more liberal attitudes than men, and the gender gaps remained over time. Fourth, and most importantly for this section, in the 1998 survey, men and women with college education were generally more liberal than their less educated counterparts, except for men’s attitudes toward marriage (where the two educational groups showed similar attitudes). This positive relationship between educational attainment and liberal attitudes is contrary to the negative association between

figuRe 1. Percentage Reporting Liberal Attitudes: Ages 25–49. Source: Social Statistics Survey 1998, 2010.

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educational attainment and liberal behaviors (that is, being never married or divorced) that was apparent by 1990, as table 1 shows. The finding that less educated men (still) had more conservative attitudes toward divorce by 1998 while their behaviors had become more liberal than those of men with a college education suggests that behavioral changes preceded attitudinal changes. Fifth, and by the same token, between 1998 and 2010 the educational gaps in attitudes toward marriage and divorce had either narrowed or reversed within each gender, as attitudes liberalized to a greater extent among the high-school educated than among college graduates. In 2010, high-school-educated men and women showed more liberal attitudes than their college-educated counterparts, except for women’s attitudes toward divorce. In other words, in 2010, the educational gaps in attitudes were more in line with the educational gaps in behaviors shown in table 1, suggesting that people’s attitudes adapted to the changing reality of their marital status. In summary, attitudinal liberalization among men and women with less education did not precede their behavioral liberalization, and it is reasonable to assume that behavioral changes are brought about by structural environmental factors rather than by attitudes. The remainder of this chapter discusses recent trends in remarriage and cohabitation, which typically parallel a rising incidence of divorce, and further contemplates the causes of divorce.

R em a R R i age: w ho R em a R R ies? With the rising divorce incidence, the pool of previously married persons expanded, and remarriage became common. The analysis in this section is based on the raw data from marriage registrations for the two decades between 1991, the earliest year for which public data is available, and 2010.19 The number of marriages involving either spouse’s remarriage rapidly increased until 2005, from approximately 44,000 in 1991 to 65,000 in 2001 to 80,000 in 2005. For the same period, the number of first marriages declined from 372,000 to 254,000 to 234,000, partly because of the shrinking size of the cohorts entering marriageable age but also given the rising age at first marriage. As a result of this

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convergence, the percentage of all marriages that were remarriages of either spouse increased from 10 to 20 to 25 percent in the respective years. Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage has remained at around 22 percent. The number of remarriages decreased slightly in relation to a slight decline of the divorce rate since 2003, whereas the number of first marriages fluctuated somewhat, with high numbers in 2006 and 2007, apparently owing to these years’ luckiness in the lunar calendar and zodiac system (that is, double springs of leap months, which occur only once in a century, and the golden pig; both signify extremely good fortune). The remarriage trend seems less sensitive to the zodiac. The individual characteristics of those entering second or further marriages by gender, educational background, and age provide insights on changing family practices. In the late 2000s, roughly one-quarter of all remarriages involved the remarriage of only the bride, one-fifth involved the remarriage of only the groom, and the remaining 55 percent involved the remarriage of both partners. Thus, brides were slightly more likely to have been previously married than grooms. This gender pattern was a reversal from the early 1990s, when the ratio of groom-only-remarriage to bride-onlyremarriage pairs was approximately three to two. The double standards of Confucian cultural norms traditionally emphasize female chastity. Thus, the shift from more male to more female remarriages warrants an explanation. The characteristics of previously married men may provide this explanation. The statistics in the late 2000s show that the higher rate of female remarriage was true only for couples with high-school or less education, for whom the ratio of bride-only remarriage to groom-only remarriage is approximately five to three, while the analogous ratio among college-educated couples is one to one. This finding is consistent with a thesis highlighting the marriageability of men, that is, increasingly lower marriageability of divorced men compared to divorced women. That is, men’s ability to provide for the family has become a prerequisite to entering and maintaining a marriage (as suggested by table 1). Most middle-aged divorced women are high-school educated, and the pool of divorced men in this age group and educational level is large. However, many men in the pool are probably not considered marriageable. At the same time, the divorce rate is so much lower among

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college-educated couples, and the pool of middle-aged, college-educated men who are unmarried, whether previously or never married, is very small. The more accessible choice for high-school-educated, early-middle-aged divorced women may be men with a high-school education who have never married, including men who are younger than themselves. Meanwhile, never-married men with high-school or less education in their thirties or forties may also face their own marriage squeeze, as younger never-married women, who may be preferred, are likely to be college educated (given the dramatic expansion of college education over the past two decades) and hence not easily accessible. Instead, the abundant pool of previously married women with a high-school education, including those somewhat older than themselves, may be within their reach. A few additional factors may also contribute to more female than male remarriage among the high-school educated. First, previously married women may be more strongly motivated to remarry than their male counterparts for economic reasons. The overall level of consumption has increased steadily, yet the rate of married women’s labor-force participation is relatively low. Further, working women with a high-school education occupy unstable positions in the labor market, most likely in the service or sales sectors with irregular employment (short term or part time, or both) and poor pay (less than two-thirds of comparable male workers’ pay). Also supporting the trend is that the sexual double standard, with its emphasis on female chastity, has relaxed over time, which may actually be an adaptation to the changing structural reality rather than its cause. One implication of this gendered pattern of remarriage is that the number of unmarried (previously married or never married) middle-aged men with a high-school education or less who are un- or underemployed may be increasing. These men may be cohabiting with a partner, as will be shown further on, but are more likely to be unattached, either living alone or living with their children or elderly parents. Related, the age gaps between spouses are wider in either direction in subsequent marriages than in first marriages. This wider dispersion in spousal age difference in remarriages must be attributable mainly to more limited access to same-age partners but also partly to weaker social norms about remarriage, as postulated by the hypothesis of an “incomplete institution.”20 In bride-only remarriages, more than one-third of

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the brides were older than their spouses. Among all marriages (first and subsequent), the number in which the brides are older than the grooms has increased only slightly, from 16 to 19 percent. These features of remarriage have some implications for the family institution. Overall, the rapid swell of remarriages soon after the divorce hike suggests that divorce is not an act of rejecting marriage as an institution. Instead, divorce and remarriage may be individual efforts to find a more qualified or suitable spouse. This view of marriage as a revolving door is supported by many in-depth interviewees’ regrets about their lack of judgment at the time of their marriage. Attitudes toward gender and generational relations seemed no more liberal among the interviewees (who were all divorced) than among the general population. The socioeconomic environment surrounding contemporary families must be the underlying force behind divorce and remarriage, and the structural conditions of earnings inequality and loosened norms about marital commitment may reinforce each other.

coh a BiTaTion The estimated prevalence of cohabitation is still very low in Korea, and reliable data are lacking. Nonetheless, there is an indication that cohabitation is emerging as a prelude or alternative to remarriage, particularly among middle-aged men.21 According to an analysis of the 2006 Social Statistics Survey, which defined cohabitation rather narrowly as two partners who consider each other as “spouses” yet did not register their marriage (possibly even after the wedding), approximately 1.5 percent of the adult population aged 20 to 59 were cohabiting.22 Restricting the denominator to all unmarried adults aged 20 to 59, about 4 percent were cohabiting, but more than 10 percent of unmarried men aged 45 to 59 and 8 percent of unmarried women aged 30 to 49 were cohabiting. Given nearly universal marriage by age 40, a vast majority of these middle-aged cohabiters were likely to have been married before (the survey did not contain questions on marital history). This speculation that postmarriage cohabitation is more prevalent than pre-first-marriage cohabitation is supported by marriage-registration data. The marriage-registration form asks for the date the couple

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actually began living together. Based on the raw data of all marriages registered from 1996 through 2008, the author reconstructed a data set for one particular cohabitation-to-marriage cohort: those who began living together in 1996 and registered their marriage any time in the next twelve years. In this analysis, premarital cohabitation is defined as living together for more than eighteen months before registering the marriage.23 The data show that premarital cohabitation was substantially more likely for remarriages than for first marriages. The analysis also shows that while the rate of cohabitation before first marriages was higher among couples with high-school or less education than among college-educated couples, the rate of cohabitation before remarriage did not vary by the couple’s educational attainment.24 This result may signify that pre-first-marriage cohabitation is chosen by those who cannot afford to marry (although they eventually married in this sample). In contrast, pre-remarriage or post-first-marriage cohabitation may be related to their being wary about entering another marriage. In summary, while the increasing incidences of marital dissolution and remarriage may suggest the analogy of a revolving door, cohabitation may be an alternative to remarriage. The propensity to cohabit is particularly high for middle-aged men, who may begin and end such living arrangements more frequently than other groups. In any case, more reliable data are needed for a better understanding of cohabitation patterns in Korea. Korea’s rapid economic growth between the 1960s and 1980s and its subsequent stagnation in recent years have been accompanied by uneven social and political transformations across institutions and sectors. These uneven trends have created a context in which divorce rose rapidly, with one basic factor enabling the divorce hike—the procedural ease of divorce—present throughout the period. This chapter introduced a few related trends, pointing to the importance of men’s educational attainment (and employment status) in marital status transitions: (1) the emerging educational divide in marital status (that is, less educated men lacking access to stable employment are less likely to form and maintain marital unions); (2) a noticeable liberalization of norms (that is, a greater acceptance of divorce and of not marrying) among the less educated of both genders, following the trend of widening gaps in marriage/divorce

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incidence by education; (3) an increase in bride-only remarriage (with the bride older than the groom) among high-school or less educated couples; and (4) a relatively high rate of cohabitation among less educated middle-aged men. Indeed, a marriage or divorce divide by class status is widely reported across countries, including the United States and Japan.25 However, the family dynamics behind such divides may or may not be the same. The social context of Korea may provide a unique case, with its rapid economic and educational expansions and swiftly changing gender relations within the legacy of Confucian values. At the same time, the global regimes of the neoliberal economy may exert similar influences on families across societies, especially if the societies share patriarchal cultures, whether in Confucian or Christian traditions. Whether the propositions formulated from the qualitative data presented in the following chapters apply to other societies will need to be tested in the future, but a combination of bifurcating labor-market conditions, rigid norms about male breadwinning, and relaxing prohibitions against divorce seems likely to be relevant to many other societies or subpopulations.

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chapter 3

Men’s Provider Anxiety and Self-Identity

T

he term “provider anxiety” refers to the anxiety experienced by husbands who perceive gaps between their provider ideals (“identity standards,” in identity control theory) and their actual performance as providers, or by husbands who are simply worried about failing to live up to their provider ideals. This chapter shows that these husbands can cause marital problems in one way or another, in what appear to be attempts to restore or sustain their masculine identity. In identity control theory, “identity verification” refers to the process of individuals conducting certain acts with the intention of restoring their self-identity,1 and this chapter demonstrates how it unfolds among husbands who feel their masculinity to be threatened. Some husbands may have difficulty fulfilling provider ideals given an absolute lack of resources, but other husbands may feel frustrated by a relative shortage of resources.2 These men engage in “compensatory manhood acts” or “hyper-masculine” activities,3 which may include acting to control their wives, indulging in certain pastimes, or simply straying from the marriage. This book adopts qualitative methods, which are advantageous for exploring the process of marital breakdown in the transitional and elusive social context of Korea, described in the previous chapter. The data are of two different types, in-depth interviews and court rulings. Thirty interviews were conducted by the author, and fifteen were gathered from two volumes of case studies published in Korea: Kim, Song, et al. (2005) and Kim, Won, et al. (2005). Appendix B describes the data in further detail, including their sources, the processes of obtaining them, the relative strengths of the two data types, and summary statistics of the total of 132 cases. It also explains the qualitative methodology used to analyze and derive a theoretical theme from the data. 31

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This chapter categorizes husbands whose provider anxiety leads to marital breakdown into six types. For the first three groups, the husbands’ lack of resources (income and wealth) is apparent (due to unstable employment). They are labeled underemployed young husbands, burntout husbands with working-class backgrounds, and husbands struggling with their small businesses. The next three groups are generally well educated; their provider predicament is more circumstantial, and their anxiety is subtler. They are labeled husbands reacting to economic shocks, husbands whose aspirations lead them to take financial risks, and husbands who display defensive masculinity. For each type, interview narratives or court rulings from a few cases will be presented. This chapter will show that a major factor breaking down marriages is not the dominating power of provider husbands, as might be widely assumed, but the lack of such power, that is, a shortage of legitimate means for men to maintain their patriarchal ideals (and dominance).

u n DeR em ploy eD you ng husBa n Ds These young husbands were mostly high-school graduates. Having grown up during a period of rising affluence in families with supportive lower-middle-class parents, they fell into despair early in their work lives. After only a couple of years of work in jobs characterized by heavy physical labor, low pay, and job instability, they sensed little prospect for improvement in their working conditions. A young wife said that her husband “stopped going to work one day.” (I do not use the prefix ex- when referring to a spouse, as the discussion in this book focuses on predivorce relationships.) The life trajectories of this group of husbands were strikingly similar. Typically, the men would lose or quit a job, get new jobs a couple more times, but at some point quit working altogether. In such couples, the wife would ask the husband to find new work of any kind. Then the husband would complain that she was “not on his side” or did “not understand him.” The husbands’ statements to this effect suggest feelings of distress caused by the gap between their provider ideals and the reality of their being unable to bear their work conditions. These young husbands had a common set of spare-time activities; almost all of them took part in on- or offline computer gaming, and some also

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Men’s Provider Anxiety and Self-Identity

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engaged in on- or offline gambling, meeting women through internet chatting, or drinking. The first narrative is from an interviewee, Jihae (female, eight years of marriage, age thirty-three, one daughter and one son).4 We met each other through a relative and dated for about three months before our marriage. I found out only one month after the marriage that he was not very diligent. He worked at his parents’ store in a traditional seafood market in Seoul, helping them with carrying heavy boxes of fish and other seafood and opening and closing the store every day. To do his regular duties, he had to wake up at three o’clock in the morning, but he almost never woke up by himself. So I had to wake him up each and every morning, and he would beg for a little more sleep, just a little more and just a little more.

Jihae’s struggles to wake her husband continued for some years, and the number of days that he went to work late or missed work for the whole day increased. To Jihae, he seemed to have a lax work attitude of “I don’t care what happens.” His parents paid him full monthly wages even though he skipped work, but Jihae said she was ashamed in front of his parents when he would collect his monthly wages after working only half the time. Eventually, her husband stopped working altogether. She recounted, “His mother was tolerant of her son. Though unsatisfied with his behavior, she several times paid off his gambling or drinking debts without letting his father know.” At the end of the interview, Jihae repeated her questions about her husband: “I just do not understand why he lived like that. Maybe it was because he grew up carefree in a relatively affluent environment? Maybe it was because his mother was too lenient, solving all of his problems for him behind the scenes? Maybe it was because he was so gullible and easily affected by others? At any rate, he had no ambition.” The probable answer is all of the above, but the deeper question is why he was not motivated to work, or why he seemed to have no life goals. From Jihae’s point of view, the problem was individual to her husband, either because of his upbringing or his personality. However, her husband’s disinterest in work was similar to that of the other young husbands in this sample with high-school or lower levels of education. Let us look at a few more similar cases before drawing generalizations.

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The marital problems described by Miyon (female, four years of marriage, age twenty-eight, two sons) were similar to Jihae’s, except that Miyon’s husband lacked parental support. The most pivotal issues in their marital conflict were related to the husband quitting his job. To paraphrase what Miyon said, her idea of marriage at the time was rather vague. She thought she should get married because all of her close friends were already married. When she met her husband, he was still officially serving in the military while actually working as a laborer at a traditional market. A few months after they were first introduced, he was discharged from the military, and they married right after that. After our marriage, he went to work at the market for about a year, not complaining about anything to me. He was a kind of a daily laborer without any long-term contract, so he frequently had to change his employers. In the process of repeatedly changing employers, he was getting tired of working, and after the first year of marriage he began skipping work. Then, increasingly, he did not want to go to work, and he just wished he could avoid going. Skipping work became his habit, I think. So we began to quarrel with each other. For our living, we used credit cards, and soon began the cycle of paying back the credit-card bills with a new credit card.

Eventually, they both became “credit defaulters.” She added, “He did not understand that we needed money for everyday life and blamed me for not being fiscally responsible. Even though he was a very good listener for others outside home, he would not listen to me.” During the marriage, Miyon worked intermittently, but when she became pregnant with the second child, she quit her job as a housemaid, as one pregnancy had ended with a natural miscarriage. The doctor warned her that she could miscarry again or that the infant might have a birth defect if she continued with heavy physical labor. The baby was born prematurely and was underweight but otherwise healthy. Five months after the birth of her son, Miyon told her husband that she wanted a divorce and that he should move out. In response, he beat her, but after a while they divorced by mutual consent. Younghee (female, six years of marriage, age thirty, one son and one daughter) also divorced her husband after struggling with his underemployment and accompanying compensatory manhood acts, including

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excessive computer gaming, extramarital affairs, and domestic violence. At the time of the marriage, she worked at a cram school, teaching mental calculation to kindergarten students. My husband was self-employed at a printing business he co-owned with his friend. But the co-ownership was in name only. He lost his investment because of the slow economy and virtually became an employee there. He eventually quit the job not long after our marriage. I had to quit my job when I became pregnant. He got a new job several times, but each time it did not last for more than a month or so. People generally encounter this and that conflict at their workplaces, you know, but my husband was just impatient. He could not settle down to any job. From my point of view, it [quitting so easily] was not the right thing to do, you know. But each time he quit, he was resentful that I was not on his side. Whenever I said something, he yelled at me, “I am not one of your cram-school students!”

Younghee’s husband was the only son of elderly parents. His mother adored him, calling him “my baby.” Having earned a medal of national honor years ago, his father received a monthly pension from the government and had a few small assets. His parents provided partial support for the unemployed couple, who also took out private loans and obtained credit cards to cover their living expenses and pay for his pastimes. The circumstances behind the marital problems of Hyunju (female, eight years of marriage, age thirty-four, one daughter and one son) were similar. However, unlike the other husbands, Hyunju’s partner was a skilled worker (a licensed concrete-strength technician), and he worked at one of the largest construction companies in the country. Hyunju had worked as a secretary at a law firm but quit her job after their marriage. The couple found it easy to maintain their lower-middle-class standard of living, until Hyunju’s husband resigned. The problem started with my husband declaring one day, “I no longer want to work at the nogada-pan” (construction site, literally “no-style site”). He added, “I don’t want to travel down to this and that small town anymore. The salary is just too small for all the trouble I go through.” My husband then submitted his resignation letter, insisting to me that “a man should do what he wants to do, and I will find other work.”

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Hyunju did not complain about him quitting the job and quietly waited for a year until he started a computer-related small business assisting customers with various technical problems, such as installing software. She also started working in the telephone-marketing division of an insurance company. Unfortunately, her husband’s business did not go well, and it closed about a year later. By that time, she too had lost her job. He began spending his time playing computer games. He did not even seem worried about anything at all unless I complained. He had the illusion that if he had some funding, he could start a business or do something. Nothing was real in his thoughts. In the meantime, he seemed to have gotten used to being unemployed. His mother worked all her life to make a living, so he perhaps expected the same thing from his wife, I don’t know. I still don’t understand why he did not work, even though he was healthy. I don’t know why he did not want to work.

They took out private loans and got into credit-card debt. In this manner, they managed to survive, beginning the cycle of paying back earlier loans with new loans. This lifestyle continued for some years, until she finally asked for a divorce. Her husband consented. Virtually the same are two more cases from Kim, Won, et al. (2005). The wife in case 4 (female, five years of marriage, age twenty-five, one son) was a high-school dropout. Her husband had an unstable earning history and experienced repeated cycles of unemployment. The couple lived with his two younger brothers, and she had to do all the housework while also doing manual labor at work. Her husband often quarreled with his two younger brothers and then took out his anger and frustration on her. Her mother’s illness worsened their marital relationship. She spent time helping and caring for her mother and paid her medical bills. Her husband complained about the time and money she spent on her mother. When the couple quarreled, he would throw things at her or hit her. She demanded a divorce, and he signed the form for consensual divorce after two years of separation. Lastly, the interviewee in Kim, Won, et al.’s (2005) case 5 (female, seven years of marriage, age thirty, one son) described how her husband had quit his job about two years after their marriage in order to start a small business. From that point on, he stayed home and spent his time

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in front of the computer, often watching pornographic videos on the internet. Meanwhile, she worked at a bakery in a large discount store. She could not bear his irresponsible lifestyle, and they frequently quarreled. She also refused his demands for sex, which probably put further pressure on their relationship. She eventually demanded a divorce, and he agreed. These six cases provide concrete details of the lives of young working-class husbands. The interviewees described their husbands as being nice men outside the home and generally taciturn, which is considered a positive feature for mature men in Korea. Their parents were supportive within their limited means. The main problem was that the men became disinterested in their work so soon. Interestingly, most of these husbands accused their wives of not being on their side or not understanding them. None of the wives seemed to have given much thought to their husbands’ complaints at the time. Instead, they chided the men for not trying hard enough to make a living and for their hypermasculine behavior, apparently believing that criticism would result in changes. The ex-wives regretted marrying these men. Some of the interviewees told the author that they had little experience of dating before their marriage and couldn’t tell who might be the best life partner. For an observer, however, the similarity of these narratives suggests that the problem is not that each individual had trouble finding a good spouse; rather, the tough work environments of these young men and their responses of quitting their jobs indicate a structural pattern. Underemployment among young working-class men is a common trend in contemporary high-income countries. In the emerging knowledge-based economy, men with no more than a high-school education lack the necessary knowledge and skills. The young husbands in this sample held irregular jobs demanding heavy physical labor while offering low pay and little prospect of advancement. Having grown up with supportive parents, they were not prepared for such work, and they felt trapped in dead-end jobs. Powerless in the labor market, these young husbands had few means to confirm their masculine identity other than by engaging in readily available hypermasculine activities. In the midst of their self-destructive immoderation, they demanded their wives’ understanding, but their wives did not comply, especially if their husbands exercised physical force. Recognizing the toughness of the labor

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market and pooling their unstable incomes might have been difficult for these couples, but doing so might have resulted in more stable marriages.

Bu R nT-ou T husBa n Ds w iTh woR k ing-cl a ss BackgRou n Ds The second group of husbands comprises men in their thirties to early forties who were lucky enough to have maintained working-class jobs with regular earnings. Nevertheless, they too experienced provider anxiety, which they transmitted to their wives. As in many other societies, domestic matters such as children’s education, management of household finances, and housework are often regarded as the wife’s responsibility in Korea. These husbands were actively involved in household management not by conducting any actual work but by meddling in various details of their wives’ activities, eventually causing marital breakdown. After working hard for many years, these husbands attributed their families’ lack of wealth or frugal lifestyle to their wives’ mismanagement of the household economy. Their wives “should have saved more money”; they “never completed household tasks”; they were “not wise in purchases”; they “could do more for the parents-in-law”; or, in various ways, they could have helped alleviate the husband’s work stress. Some of these husbands suspected their wives of secretly setting aside money. These anxiety-ridden husbands tended to alternate between “getting quiet at home,” not interacting with their wives and children, and getting violent either verbally (“I can set a fire”) or physically (throwing things). Their accusations usually caused angry reactions from their wives, and the two spouses’ irritable exchanges would be repeated in their daily lives until the marriage was dissolved. Here are four cases of judicial divorces that fit this pattern. The record of Busan Family Court case 112 (two years of marriage, husband’s age thirty-five, wife’s age twenty-nine, one child) documents how the husband was always judgmental about his wife’s housework, such as dishwashing and cleaning, and how she felt his judgment as meddling. As her frustration intensified, she complained to her husband, and quarrels and fights took place almost daily. The escalation of the conflict led the husband to sleep away from home after arguments

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and come home in the morning just to get ready for work. Repeated incidents of fighting included episodes of her insulting his parents, who sided with him, and her subsequent apologies. Eventually, the wife brought the case to court. The court assigned equal fault to each spouse and granted the divorce based on Clause 6 of Article 840, “other significant reasons making it difficult to continue the marriage,” saying that continuing the marriage would result in unbearable pain for the couple. In the couple described in Busan Family Court case 119 (fifteen years of marriage, husband’s age forty-five, wife’s age forty-one, two children), the husband, a skilled technician, was the sole earner and managed the household finances himself. He was stingy and checked every one of his wife’s expenditures. During the winter and summer school breaks, he would ask her to take the children to the public library so that they could save on heating or air-conditioning costs. This meant that she and the children had to go to the library every day during breaks and on holidays and weekends. In every aspect of family life, he had tyrannical and oppressive attitudes: He insulted and hit her on several occasions, and some of these violent outbursts were witnessed by relatives. She brought the case to the court, which then granted her a divorce on the grounds of Article 840, Clause 3, “severely unjust treatment by spouse,” and Clause 6, “other significant reasons making it difficult to continue the marriage.” In another case from Busan Family Court, case 124 (four years of marriage, husband’s age thirty, wife’s age twenty-six, one child), the husband worked night shifts, and he often pointed out the shortcomings of his wife’s household management. After escalating verbal exchanges and physical fighting, she filed for divorce, accusing him of endless scolding, tantrums, nagging, and constant computer gaming, in addition to such abusive acts as swearing and yelling. He countered that while he had been working night shifts for many years, he had never enjoyed a warm, welcoming family atmosphere when he returned home from his demanding job. He accused her of not caring about him or his difficulties at work. They rarely had sex during the marriage. Ten sessions of mandatory marriage counseling, a requirement instituted in 2012, did not resolve their conflicts, so the court granted the divorce on the grounds of Article 840, Clause 6, citing “irreconcilable differences.” By the time of the divorce, the couple owned two small condo units, which

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is a substantial amount of assets given his monthly earnings of two million won (approximately two thousand US dollars), a typical salary for lower-middle-class men with relatively stable jobs. One was owned by the husband alone, and the second they co-owned equally; the court confirmed the same ownership in the postdivorce property division. In Seoul Family Court case 122 (two years of marriage, one child), the husband had somewhat higher earnings than the other men described in this section. His wife’s earnings also had been higher than those of many other wives in the sample, but she quit her job at the time of her first pregnancy. From the start of the marriage, he criticized her for not performing the housework well. After she gave birth, childcare was added to her responsibilities, and her performance deteriorated in his eyes, while she suffered from the combined workload of housework and childcare. The tension between them intensified, and insulting words were exchanged. They then began using separate rooms and stopped communicating. The husband filed for divorce. The court granted divorce on the grounds of Article 840, Clause 6, assigning the fault equally to the two spouses. Busan Family Court case 69 (five years of marriage, husband’s age twenty-nine, wife’s age twenty-seven, two children) provides a pertinent example of how some husbands with anxieties about providing for their families may withdraw from family interactions. This husband was a member of a business association of truck owners; he drove his own truck, delivering goods for corporate clients. His job involved hard labor, and he spent most of his time watching TV or computer gaming when he was home. The wife did all the housework and childcare, yet he accused her, in her eyes groundlessly, of being neglectful of her responsibilities. Then he began to refuse to talk to her, saying she was stubborn and that talking to her would result in arguments, which suggests they had frequently argued. Meanwhile, she began drinking. He filed for divorce, claiming that his wife had damaged the marriage. The court adjudicated heavier responsibility to the husband but still granted a divorce based on Clause 6 of Article 840, “other significant reasons making it difficult to continue the marriage.” In summary, regardless of the court-assigned blame, the husbands in these cases were overloaded by their work responsibilities and demanded that their wives share the burden in one way or another. But

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their manners toward their wives were domineering, insulting, oppressive, and, worse, often violent, with the exception of the one husband who retreated from the marital relationship. Nonetheless, in the 132 judicial and interview cases examined for this book, there is not a single record of a husband explicitly asking his wife to work outside the home. No “man,” according to Korean norms, would ask his wife to help support the family economically. Instead, the husbands in this section interfered with or complained about their wives’ household management, seemingly in the hopes of maximizing the fruits of their hardearned incomes. But the wives resisted these male intrusions. In the sense that these divorces resulted from women’s resistance, it may be construed that women’s liberalizing attitudes contributed to the marital dissolution. Note, however, that the underlying cause of these relationships’ breakdown was gender-role expectations or, more specifically, men’s anxiety about their provider role; the women’s responses were secondary.

husBa n Ds sTRuggling w iTh Th eiR sm a ll Busin esses This is another group of husbands with unstable incomes, but their marital dynamics are distinct from that of the previous two groups. Small businesses are very fragile in Korea. Up to 70 percent of newly established small businesses close within five years. Government statistics show that thousands of new enterprises open every year but that almost the same number close. While the size of the workforce in small businesses has increased, these businesses’ survival rate is lowest among enterprises of all sizes, particularly in three industries: construction, lodging and restaurants, and wholesale and retail.5 Analysts point out several reasons for the high failure rate of small businesses in Korea. First, many owners launch businesses without solid preparation; their market research is superficial and their planning poor. Second, the social infrastructure supporting small businesses is very weak; for example, small-business owners have difficulty finding capable workers and accessing bank loans, so they turn to private loans for business financing. Third, small businesses are at a disadvantage in the market, competing against large

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conglomerates or their branch companies, and hence are particularly vulnerable to any macroeconomic downturns. What links this business instability to poor marital relationships is the blurred boundary between business and family finances, pushing men to be hypervigilant about household living expenses, which their wives often consider to be their proper domain. At the same time, there is ample room for the wives to get involved in mom-and-pop-type small businesses, raising the issue of control between the spouses. For these husbands, their provider roles involve controlling both the spouse and the business. The same held true for a self-employed professional man, a doctor running his own clinic. Viewed differently, the contribution of a spouse as an unpaid worker can be crucial to the success of a small-scale family business. The need for a cooperative relationship means that the marital stability of couples working together in a small business could be higher than that of couples with paid employees, as long as the family business remained stable. The irregular daily routine of men running small businesses may pose additional challenges to their families. One consequence of the weak social infrastructure for small businesses is that the owners have to take care of the various problems that can arise unexpectedly at any time of the day. In addition, while the culture of after-work gatherings crosses occupational sectors and ranks, evening gatherings can be an essential part of small-business owners’ work as a time to meet and make deals with potential customers. Obviously, evening gatherings deprive them of family time and may result in weak spousal ties.6 Seoul Family Court case 52 (fifteen years of marriage, two children) describes a husband anxious about the financial status of his small business. He got angry when his wife received cosmetic surgery without consulting him. The wife had cosigned bank loans to support his business, yet he criticized her for not taking care of the family and for overspending, resulting in frequent fights. Earlier, he had a credit card issued to her for living expenses, but since the business’s profits had decreased, he often interrogated her about her expenditures. Eventually, he accused her of secretly setting aside funds, which again escalated into an argument. During these fights, he would hit her and swear at her. “Deeply disappointed,” she left home and filed for divorce. The court granted it based on Clauses 3 and 6 of Article 840.

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Turning to an interview with Myungho (male, ten years of marriage, age forty-two, two sons), his story helps in understanding the effects of small-business ownership on divorce. Initially, the couple’s separation did not make much sense to the author, who had a preconception that medical doctors would earn enough not to have to worry much about family living expenses. Only after more data were gathered and smallbusiness-owning husbands emerged as a group did the case find a place. Myungho was a surgeon married to a housewife with a college education. The first seven years of his marriage were good, with the problems starting in the eighth year, when he opened a clinic: She wanted to be the financial manager of the clinic. I did not like the idea and refused. As my income grew, she spent it like water. She searched my bag and took my credit cards. She spent all that money without telling me in advance. When I pressed her, it turned out the expenditures were not for anything outrageous but mostly for the children and for living costs, to buy books, clothes, and stuff for the children and home supplies, like curtains and so on. But at the time I was anxious to save money to expand the clinic. To protest, I slept in the living room. Somehow that lasted for two to three years.

When she suggested a separation one day, he countered by saying, “Why don’t we divorce then?” He speculated, “Her pride might have been greatly hurt as a woman. If we had just not slept separately, we might not have divorced.” Although his wife could be assertive, as he described, she was not in any position to threaten his masculine identity. Yet he strongly defended his control over the family finances. His anxiety about expanding the clinic had put him in an insecure position. His upbringing by a single mother and his cold personality may have played roles in his divorce, as he suggested during the interview, but the circumstances of his divorce are not different from those of other small-business owners with much less human capital. The divorce of Yuna (female, five years of marriage, age twenty-nine, husband’s age forty-three, one daughter and one son) also fits this pattern: her husband was another small-business owner, and their marriage collapsed around the time his business slowed down. Yet the manifestation of marital conflict is somewhat different in this case. Yuna met her husband at a nightclub when she was a sophomore in college. He

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was a high-school graduate and fourteen years older than her. In less than a year, when she found out that she was pregnant, she quit school and married him. At the time, he ran a small trading business, supplying items to small retail shops in residential areas. For the first two and a half years, he was nice to her, and they were happy, with no particular problems, although his working hours were long, with few holidays. “The difficulties began after I gave birth to our second child. Whenever I went out to see my friends, I left the two children with my mother, and he got suspicious of me. He would interrogate me after I came home, asking whom I met and what I did.” Yuna said that because they had met at a nightclub, her husband thought she might meet other men in similar ways. She theorized that men visit nightclubs to meet women and so assume that women go to meet men, but women go to them to spend time with female friends. Yuna was bored staying home all day dealing with household tasks. She had actually suggested that she work, but her husband objected: “You are not suited for social life” (sahoe sangwhal, meaning “work life”). Their interpersonal conflicts and tensions continued: He seemed to be convinced that she was having affairs, and she did not understand why he thought so. There was no physical violence or even loud quarrels, except that he threw things on a few occasions. Our speechless tensions lasted for months, and it was hard for me to bear. One day I proposed a temporary separation, and he countered with the idea that we should just divorce. A few months after I moved to my parents’ residence, he prepared the consensual divorce form, and I signed it.

Yuna said she only later realized that his business was not going well and that his work stress may have been the reason he acted the way he did, not talking much but bringing lots of tension into the marriage. Around the time their marriage began deteriorating, Yuna borrowed money from her father to help her husband pay business bills, with the assumption that it was a temporary problem. However, to her surprise, her husband did not (or could not) repay the debt. As Yuna was not good at saving money, her husband managed the household and business finances. She suspected his business might be slowing down but never knew what was really happening.

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husBa n Ds R eacTing To econom ic shocks This book assumes the same mechanisms of marital breakdown operating over the two decades of the study period. With the current sample, it is hard to assess temporal trends in the causes of divorce, both because the sample size is small and because it is complicated to assess period effects in the “causes” of divorce, as it is often preceded by several years of marital stress. It is no surprise that the divorce-registration statistics regarding “reasons for divorce” do not show any meaningful yearly fluctuations matching the trends in the crude divorce rate or the economy. At least since 2000, the distribution of the reasons for divorce remains fairly constant, with the exception of two categories (“personality differences” and “family disharmony”), which show linear trends of gradual increase and decrease, respectively. Yet several cases in this and other sections illustrate how economic downturns can negatively impact marriages by threatening the husband’s provider identity. One case involved abrupt retirement due to the slowdown of the economy. The interviewee’s husband had functioned well economically until external factors pushed his early retirement (which was voluntary). When he lost his earning capacity, his behaviors and the resulting marital problems were surprisingly similar to those of husbands suffering from chronic underemployment, as described earlier in this chapter. Sunhee (female, eighteen years of marriage, forty-four years old, one son and one daughter) and her husband had both attended college. Her husband had worked for many years in the planning department of a large construction company when he was sent to a European branch office. His rank was high, and he had a good reputation at the company. The entire family, including the daughter and son, moved overseas. Two years later, the Korean economy slipped into a sudden recession—beginning the so-called IMF era—and Sunhee’s husband was asked to return home. But the family decided to stay abroad, mainly for the education of the children, who were then in grades five and six. He resigned from the company, which was a critical mistake, according to Sunhee: We did not know many people in the country. To start a new business, we sold our house in Seoul. However, because of a sudden drop in the

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currency exchange rate and the cost of transmitting money, surprisingly little ended up in our hands. Furthermore, we did not do any real market research in advance. Soon our business almost collapsed. With the few resources left to us, we somehow managed our small store. I worked there all day, every day, constantly looking up words in the dictionary to communicate with the customers and all that. My husband stayed home all day and drank or played computer games.

She was quick to learn how to do the complicated paperwork for business transactions, health insurance, and so on. But her husband often made sarcastic remarks, telling her what to do. In the interview, she continued describing how badly he adapted to the new reality. She had known he was a person who “swiveled between feelings of superiority and inferiority,” and at the time “his sense of inferiority exploded.” Over the next several years, all of the family returned to Korea. Sunhee and her daughter came back first, escaping from her husband’s death threats. Within a short period of time, her husband was deported from Europe. Her son finished high school in Europe, thanks to generous public support, and was the last to return to Korea. Her husband’s misconduct continued; for instance, he used her name for a cell-phone subscription and had his bills mailed to her. She got help from his siblings to divorce him, against his resistance, citing her need for financial security so she could pay for the children’s college education. In the social context of the maximum division of labor between spouses, this husband’s workplace may have been his only world. His unplanned career exit left him to cope in an unknown territory that he simply did not know how to navigate.

husBa n Ds w hose a spiR aTions lea D Th em To Ta k e fina nci a l R isks Another group of divorced husbands includes those who had pursued doomed financial dreams. For the three cases presented here, again, the interviewees were the wives. Their college-educated, white-collar husbands were ordinary family men. One consequence of Korea’s several-decades-long period of rapid economic growth has been heightened consumerism and materialism. It became normal to anticipate increasing

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affluence. At the same time, the neoliberal economy’s aggressive financial market promoted easy loans. These husbands did not let their wives know about their loans until things went wrong, even though their wives were in charge of managing the household finances. It is a general belief that providing for the family is the husband’s exclusive responsibility. Although the following three cases all vary in their details, they share the common theme of male providers desiring a higher standard of living than they can afford. Suhyun (female, sixteen years of marriage, age thirty-nine, two sons) graduated from a vocational high school specializing in commerce and then worked at a small company as a bookkeeper. Her husband was a college student when they met. While the couple dated for about three years, he graduated from college and got a good job at a stock-trading company. He was sociable and had a good sense of humor. He lived with his parents, and Suhyun moved in with the family when they married. He bought several new electronic appliances and home furnishings, such as a refrigerator, a washer, cooking appliances, and bedding, and lied to his parents that her family had bought them as marriage gifts. Such wedding gifts from the bride’s family are customary in Korea, but Suhyun’s parents could not afford them. Soon after their marriage, Suhyun quit her job to devote herself to homemaking. Only a short time later, she began to manage the monthly paychecks of both her husband and her father-in-law, because her mother-in-law had fallen ill. About five years after the marriage, her mother-in-law passed away. Two years after that, Suhyun’s father-in-law decided to marry again. He asked his son’s family to move out of the house and did not offer any financial help in their housing search. This was problematic because housing prices had risen astronomically over the past few decades, particularly in Seoul, driven by middle-class families who had taken advantage of the real-estate market to push up the price of their homes and then sell them at a profit. Whereas middle-class families could amass a fortune by moving in and out of such homes a few times, home ownership became unattainable for people without seed assets.7 Leasing rather than buying became difficult as well; a long-term lease on a house requires the deposit of approximately half of the purchasing price (this lease is called jonse; the interest on the deposit serves as monthly rent). Monthly rental units are rare

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in Korea except for single-room occupancies (often called wollumm). (In the 2010s, the ratio of lease to purchase price reached 80 percent in many areas, and monthly rentals become more popular as interest rates fell.) For an intuitive comparison, Seoul housing prices are only slightly lower than Manhattan housing prices, although the per capita GDP in Korea is merely one-third of that in the United States. This is why many middle-class parents provide their newly wedded children, particularly sons, with housing (either purchased or leased) or a lump sum to spend on housing.8 Suhyun and her husband had expected that they would inherit the house of his parents someday. They certainly had never anticipated that they would have to move out and find a home of their own. He had spent most of his savings to buy the wedding gifts at the time of their marriage, and the small amount they had saved since then was far short of what was needed for housing. Suddenly realizing that “he owned nothing,” her husband panicked, Suhyun speculated. Somehow he leased an apartment long term, or so she thought. He took out a loan through his company, as bank loans were relatively easy to obtain for stock-trading employees. He did not tell Suhyun any details about the bank loan. Thinking back, I suspect, it was the occasion that changed him forever, in terms of his approach to money. At that time, I assumed that the apartment was leased on jonse only, but, thinking back, I guess that there still was some monthly rent to pay in addition to the big deposit. Obviously, his salary fell short of the interest, rent, and our living expenses. I did not know it at the time, but I now suspect that he kept borrowing money from multiple sources, private loans, etcetera.

By the time Suhyun found out about the situation, several years later, he had already been fired from the company and was debt ridden. When she first learned about his debts, she was shocked but not in despair. Instead, she “was determined to recover from that swamp.” She worked very hard, but the jobs she could get as a middle-aged returnee to the labor market were low paying: delivering newspapers and milk, doing dishwashing at restaurants, and so on.9 However, she said, “the most regrettable thing is that I trusted him completely whenever he gave me false hope.” She did not realize he “had become a different person.” He

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was never violent, but he used to be “so nice to me and to the children.” Once “a lovely father” and “a good husband,” he had now lost his sense of financial reality and responsibility. Eventually, they moved to “a shack,” and she divorced him to avoid debt collectors, who showed up whenever she thought they were finally cleared of loans. As of the time of the interview, she still did not understand what exactly had happened to him and why he became dependent on loans, finally losing touch with reality. The story of Kim, Won, et al.’s (2005) case 10 (female, twenty years of marriage, age forty-nine, two sons) is similar. Her husband worked at a large company in a high-ranking position; she was a housewife. They lived comfortably as a middle-class family. He handled the family’s budget by himself and kept all the bank accounts, credit cards, the house, and other family assets under his name. He never discussed monetary issues with her, and she had little idea of their financial situation. Then one day, to her horror, they lost almost everything. Her husband suddenly disappeared, apparently having fled to avoid creditors, and she learned about his multiple debts. Something must have gone wrong with his risky investments. Because of the money he owed, his company did not award the family any severance pay. She divorced him by a court ruling in his absence, which allowed her to manage the aftermath; that is, it exempted her from the obligation to repay his debts and made her eligible to apply for welfare benefits. Case 10 could be a prototype of divorcing for “economic reasons.” Another case of this type regards Kyung-a (female, four years of marriage, age thirty, one son). She said she had liked the man who became her husband since they first met at a church youth group when she was in middle school. By the time she began dating him at age twenty-four, two years before their marriage, he had received a bachelor’s degree in industrial arts and she an associate degree in creative writing. Everything went well for their marriage. They had many supportive mutual friends from the neighborhood church, and their parents agreed to their marriage. She said, “I was very happy, because he, too, finally liked 10 me after all those years since we first met.” He worked in the interiordesign division of a cosmetic company, mainly remodeling shops for new franchises. She quit her job at the time of their marriage because she wanted to be a stay-at-home mother. Then, on a lunar New Year’s Day in the fourth year of their marriage, when their only son was one and a

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half years old, her husband declared that he was going to stop bringing home his salary. He said that he needed it to repay his debts but would not explain further. This was a “real surprise” because she had “managed all their household finances” and believed that she knew about all his monetary transactions. She soon learned through a credit-rating agency that he had initially gotten a loan of about six million won (six thousand US dollars) from a secondary bank and then kept taking out new loans with higher interest rates to pay back the interest and principal of the previous loan. Kyung-a said, “The total amount of debt was not unmanageable, depending on how you looked at it.” Her parents might have been willing to pay off his debts had she asked them. In fact, her husband had had similar problems before their marriage, and she and her parents had helped him to pay off his debts then, thinking that single men without proper family support can make mistakes. What mattered most to her was the lost trust. Once my trust in my husband broke down, I did not know what to think of him. The sense of betrayal was hard to bear. I could not look him in the eyes anymore. I had thought that everything was under control. I just could not understand at all why he had to go that far. If it was needed, I would not have minded working, either part- or fulltime. But all he said to me was, “One debt called for another debt.”

Kyung-a concluded that his problems had more to do with irresponsible habits than with a shortage of funds. She did not know of any compelling reason why her husband would need the money, except perhaps that her parents-in-law might have expressed a hope of some financial support from him. He was not in dire need of funds to provide for his family, because Kyung-a’s parents provided economic support in various ways. However, financial institutions at that time were marketing aggressively, and, at Kyung-a’s best guess, they would have given him easy loans for amounts beyond what he could reasonably repay. Her husband was not afraid of being in debt and did not consider it an issue. He even asked her, “What is so wrong about spending money in advance and paying it back later?” He apologized for not bringing home his salary, but in his opinion, the debt was not a problem for his family.

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Even so, she said that if their marital relationship had been very good, they might have remained married: Looking back, our relationship was never very good. Our communication was not open. My concerns were always with my body and with having a baby. I quit my job at the time of our marriage, assuming that I would get pregnant very soon. But it took a year and a half to do so. In the meantime, all I cared about was getting pregnant. When I finally did, it was all about the baby.

They lived on the second floor of a house that her grandmother owned. Although their place was fairly separate from the other floors of the house, she said she always stayed with her parents on the third floor after the baby was born. After work, he joined her and ate dinner there. Even though she could see that her husband was uncomfortable eating and staying there, she did not think about it much, because she needed her mother’s help with the baby. He did not talk much or stay long after dinner. She added, “I now think that if I had been more attentive to him and our relationship, things could have been different.” But she quickly added, “I have no regrets. I don’t think that his financial behavior would have easily changed.” She thought that most of his expenditures were probably for normal daily needs such as car payments and maintenance, a smartphone, drinking and dining out with friends, and occasional small sums for his parents, but she also suspected he may have had some secret hobbies, such as online gaming, gambling, or playing the lottery. In any case, his expenditures were to maintain the lifestyle that he believed he deserved, which presumably would boost his self-identity as an independent, grown-up man. However, Kyung-a rejected him for failing to be a responsible provider for the family. If the male-provider role norm is strong, the logical response to a man’s failure to provide would be to end the marriage. She initiated their divorce, and he consented. In all three of these cases, loans were a central factor in the husband’s financial problems, whether they were used to cover living expenses, investments, or personal expenditures. Also, the husbands did not tell their wives about their financial transactions. These middle-class men aspired to live more comfortably than they could afford, and they were

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unrealistic in hoping that their loans or investments would somehow give them a break. It seems there is only a fine line between jae-tech (financial technology)—savvy investments, good speculations—and the pursuit of daebak (good luck).

husBa n Ds w ho Displ ay Defensi v e m a sc u lin iT y For the relatively young, well-educated, and mostly childless husbands in this group, their ways of verifying their self-identity can be subtle. These husbands had gone through episodes of economic vulnerability or dependence (either on their parents or on their wives) and projected their role frustration onto their wives, especially if the wives had access to greater wealth, inherited or to be inherited, or had better-paying jobs. Male-interviewee narratives and court rulings demonstrate that these husbands became critical of various personality traits of their spouses. They complained that their wives were not “feminine” enough—not submissive, sexy, supportive, or amiable—or poor housekeepers, or prone to unpredictable anger. Some of these husbands triggered marital breakdown with acts of compensatory manhood, as described in earlier sections, but several husbands initiated the divorce as a way to retreat from the marital relationship. Sungjin (male, four years of marriage, age thirty-three, no children) blamed his wife for making the marriage unsustainable. He complained, “She didn’t know how to use the vacuum cleaner, washing machine, and other household appliances.” With disdain, he also said, “She was so dirty. When brushing her teeth, she used a cup that had mildew on the surface, and it never occurred to her that she could have washed it. She smelled dirty sometimes, and I didn’t want to sleep with her.” Sungjin had quit his job about six months into the marriage and was preparing for his next job. His parents had provided housing at the time of the marriage and gave them regular financial support to cover part of their living expenses. His wife was working in a stable position at a large firm and, as the sole earner in the couple, covered the rest of their expenses. Sungjin made only one remark hinting at her perception of his role performance: “She was thinking I was not doing anything and just

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idling away my time.” Sungjin was frustrated and unhappy for most of the three years before the divorce. He brought up the idea of divorce to his mother around the first-year anniversary of the marriage and finally carried it out after gaining his mother’s approval. His narrative also included the following comment: “I think my mother-in-law had a very negative view about men in general; she advised her daughter not to lift a finger for housework and told her not to cook any dishes that I liked if I had been drinking the day before.” Sungjin’s mother-in-law had chastised him for complaining about his wife, which may have only worsened the marital relationship, if we presume that her approval would have eased his anxiety as a breadwinner. As for Sungjin’s parents, they advised him to calm down and get over his problems, to no effect. His narrative suggests that his perceptions of his wife hinged on his perception of his own location in a web of role expectations. He himself could have washed the cup in the bathroom, for instance, but he did not. The couple did not seek any professional marriage counseling, as is true in virtually all of the cases examined in this book. Taesuk (male, fifteen years of marriage, age forty-one, no children) briefly mentioned that both he and his wife had suffered traumatic childhoods. Despite the possibility of psychological issues, I place this case in the category of defensive masculinity based on their marital trajectory. For Taesuk, his resentment of his wife’s personality was the primary reason for the divorce. He met his wife through a mutual friend when they were college juniors, and they married six years later. Not long after their marriage, they went abroad for his doctoral studies. His wife also studied, for a master’s degree, and then got a job in the same industry in which she had worked in Korea. Although her work performance was good, she had interpersonal difficulties with her bosses and colleagues and changed her job twice in the next five years or so while he finished his PhD degree. Taesuk’s parents helped support the couple at first but then suffered a financial setback; his only income in the last three years of his PhD program was from a partial graduate assistantship, and her earnings covered the major portion of their living expenses. During those three years, there were problems at her workplace, one thing after another. She was the type who would keep her troubles inside her for some time and then one day let them explode. When

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she was stressed out with work, she would pour out her frustration at home. She would get hysterical and utter terrible things. I was always anxious because her mood swings were unpredictable, and her emotions erupted a couple of times a week on average. From the beginning of the marriage, actually from the days of dating, I had warned her many times about her habit of sudden explosions. But in those three years, working with all those foreigners in a foreign country seemed particularly stressful, especially because she had to work for our living. And implicitly, implicitly, it was as if the situation gave her some kind of right to get mad at home, while I was not qualified to complain about it because we lived on her earnings.

In addition, his wife was often angry about something his mother had said or done, and she accused his mother of looking down on her family. Even though they lived in a different country, such in-law conflicts constantly surfaced. His wife did not believe that his parents could no longer afford to help them: “She said, ‘They could not just fail like that.’ ” Upon receiving his doctoral degree, Taesuk got a job at a university. He assumed things would get better once they moved and he started earning an income. Presumably, his wife could now relax. However, things were not that simple. She got a new job only a week after they moved. He speculated, “Maybe she was worried that she would become useless without working.” They remained childless, as early in the marriage they had agreed not to have a child. Neither of them wanted their children to “suffer from the kinds of life pains” they had gone through (he did not elaborate). Their interpersonal tensions worsened. “There were no more excuses to justify her erratic, hysterical deeds and words, and there seemed no prospect of improvement.” Does this narrative reflect his self-serving perception that he had no reason to bear her erratic personality any longer? After all, he had known about her personality before they married. In any case, “after a few tragic and violent incidents, and feeling almost suicidal,” he prepared a mutual-consent divorce form, and she signed it. Several more husbands in judicial cases may be broadly categorized as demonstrating defensive masculinity, although their personal accounts, as reported in the court cases, are more limited than the narratives of the interviewees. These husbands, apparently perceiving threats to their self-identity, would become defensive about their dominance

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over their wives, as their family circumstances changed. To understand what happened to the couple in the next ruling, some knowledge of Korean wedding culture is needed. Marriage in Korea has long been a union of two families, which is particularly evident in the wedding ceremony, and parental involvement can be extensive. Exchanges of wedding gifts are highly institutionalized and can be elaborate among wealthy families, including gifts of such luxury goods as jewelry, name-brand watches, fur coats, and so on. It is customary for the parents, not the groom and bride, to purchase and send these gifts to the other family.11 The bride’s side of the family is expected to distribute gifts to members of the groom’s extended family, the boundary of which is defined by his parents. The gifts from his side are usually given only to the bride. However, in recent years, instead of all these costly gifts, which may not be to the receiver’s taste, money is exchanged. The bride’s parents deliver a lump sum of money to the groom’s parents, tantamount to the price of all the gifts (which can be a few hundred thousand US dollars among upper-middle-class families), and then his parents customarily return half of the amount to her parents in lieu of wedding gifts to the bride. The groom’s parents are also expected to pay for the couple’s housing, which more than offsets the value of the gifts from the bride’s side. The convention is the same for working-class families, on a smaller scale. In Seoul Family Court case 100 (one year of marriage, husband’s age thirty-one, wife’s age thirty, no children), both spouses had wealthy parents. For a wedding gift, the bride’s parents transferred one billion Korean won, close to one million US dollars, to the groom’s parents. His parents returned only one-fifth of the amount—much less than the conventional half. Instead, his parents bought the couple a condo in the Gangnam area of Seoul, whose value was not specified in the ruling but could have been at least several hundred thousand US dollars. His mother also bought the bride a membership in a luxury sports club, which cost a little less than ten thousand US dollars. Their marital problems, or, more specifically, the husband’s complaints about his wife’s personal characteristics, began during the honeymoon. In one incident, the wife wanted to buy a cosmetic product costing five hundred US dollars for her grandmother as a gift from the honeymoon trip, but the husband insisted that she buy a cheaper one, one at most half the price. He later said she was careless about spending

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because she thought she had brought enough money into the marriage. He also said she did not listen to him because she had nothing to fear. A gift for her grandmother was only the beginning. After the honeymoon, she wanted to give some pocket money to her younger sister, from the funds that she had received from their relatives during her ceremonial deep bowing to them (part of the traditional wedding ceremony, now an addendum to the Western-style wedding). Her husband objected to the idea, saying it was wasteful. Financial matters were not the only issue. Among other things, he complained about her eyelids. She had had cosmetic surgery for double eyelids, which is popular among young Korean women, and he did not like the look of her postoperation eyelids. He insisted that she redo the surgery, which she refused to do. Then he accused her and her parents of having promised that she would have the remedial surgery only to ensure the marriage took place but had never really intended to do so. He also said that she lacked the intellectual capacity to understand him and that there were significant gaps between them in their cultural and aesthetic levels. After several similar incidents, the wife brought the case to court, and the judge granted a divorce, ordering the husband (and his parents) to return the one million dollars received from the bridal family minus their return gifts to her and some of their other wedding costs. One million US dollars is a lot of money for a wedding gift, even for uppermiddle-class families. If the bride’s parents expected it to shield their daughter from the husband’s attempts to exert patriarchal dominance, the strategy did not work out. In a few other judicial cases, the husbands withdrew from the marriages. These husbands’ performance of their gender roles did not conform to societal norms. In Seoul Family Court case 48 (twenty years of marriage, ages mid-forties, two children), the husband went to the United States soon after the marriage to get a PhD in a social science discipline. He went alone because his parents objected to his wife accompanying him, viewing her as a hindrance to his studies. She also studied abroad but in a different country, returning to Korea a few years later with a degree as planned. He remained in the United States for about fifteen years, his parents supporting him, but did not succeed in obtaining a PhD. In the meantime, she taught at a university, first as a part-time lecturer and then as a full-time professor, and raised their two children.

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After he returned to Korea, the couple lived together briefly, with their children, one of whom was diagnosed with cancer. Within a short time, the husband developed diabetes. He then became angry that his wife paid little attention to his health, and he began living in his private office, which his parents had arranged for him. After a while, the wife filed for divorce, and it was granted on the grounds of Article 840, Clauses 2, 3, and 6, which stipulate malicious desertion, severely unjust treatment by the spouse, and irreconcilable differences, respectively. In Seoul Family Court case 57 (nineteen years of marriage, ages midforties, one child), the level of the husband’s education is not known, but his life trajectory is similar to that of previously described husbands. The wife had been a music tutor but stopped working after marriage. The husband had worked in a construction company and then briefly in sales before taking over the management of an eleven-story building owned by his parents. They had one child, who was diagnosed at age two with speech and hearing disabilities and heart problems. While the wife devoted her time to the child, her husband accused her of being contemptuous of him. The court ruling does not provide much detail on why he felt that way, but his repeated failures in the labor market and his total dependence on his parents for an income could have led him to perceive his wife’s devotion to the child as neglect of him. The two spouses did not talk to each other and made no effort to improve their relationship. Then one day the husband decided to separate, and he began living in his office at the building he managed. All along, his parents had paid for his child’s medical bills and given money to their daughter-in-law regularly. They had also provided a family home for the couple. As the separation continued, his parents stopped sending money to his wife, and she filed for divorce and won. The child’s disability may have been an underlying factor behind the estrangement of the spouses, but his feeling of being despised was crucial to the process of marital breakdown. There is nothing exceptional in the everyday conduct of the husbands described in this chapter. These behaviors of controlling the wife, selfindulgence, or going astray from a troubling relationship are rather common manhood acts. Yet when viewed within the framework of identity verification, these behavioral patterns provide important insights. It is not necessarily the abundance of the men’s social and economic

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resources or power that facilitates their acts but the lack thereof or their struggles to obtain such resources and power. Men’s provider anxiety, which is related to their rigid expectations about the husband being the breadwinner for the family, is the commonality behind the six types of marital dynamics described in this chapter, in which the husband triggers marital problems. Many divorces in the sample of both in-depth interviews and court rulings belong to these six types. The processes through which wives trigger marital problems are somewhat different, given changing norms and contradictory perceptions of wifely roles. The next chapter discusses the cases in which marital problems arise from the wives’ contradictory role perceptions, which reflect ambiguous or transitional expectations about women’s roles. The chapter’s concluding remarks address the asymmetry of norms and perceptions about the roles of the two genders and their implications for marital breakdown.

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chapter 4

Women’s Contradictory Role Perceptions

B

oth the literature and the sample data suggest that, in contrast to the persistent norms about male-provider roles, social expectations regarding women’s roles are flexible enough to allow individuals (both women and men) to define the wifely role with reference to their personal conceptions, from full-time housewife to full-time worker. This flexibility in role prescription may serve wives in any role position, but, at the same time, depending on their view of ideal roles, some women in the same positions may feel inadequate in their role performance.1 In other words, role flexibility may create contradictory perceptions within and across individuals. For this reason, compared to the behaviors of husbands, it is harder to generalize the circumstances in which wives breach the marital contract. Nonetheless, a few contradictory patterns are described in this chapter: wives with unmet expectations of hypergamy, self-serving wives who are financially independent, depressed housewives, and wives insisting on their own terms. These types of marital dynamics show that wives in any role position may violate the marital contract and trigger marital breakdown due to a gap between their ideal self and reality.

w i v es w iTh u nm eT ex pecTaTions of h y peRga m y Hypergamy, which refers to a marriage in which the groom’s socioeconomic status is higher than the bride’s, has been considered the ideal type of match for a long time. The norm made sense under the patriarchal family system, which prescribed a strict division of labor by gender, 59

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with the husband as the leader, decision maker, and provider and the wife as the follower in charge of domestic tasks. The norm justified substantial gender gaps in educational attainment, gainful employment, and occupational status. In contemporary Korea, where women’s socioeconomic status has improved rapidly, hypergamy has become less feasible. Yet the ideal remains persistent (as in Japan),2 and women may experience cognitive dissonance when they fail to achieve it. The following narratives are from three male interviewees. The husbands portray their wives’ dissatisfaction with the marriage and tendency to escalate marital conflict. These wives were economically independent either because they had occupational skills and earning ability or because they had resources from their parents. In the case of Jihoon (male, ten years of marriage, age thirty-seven, two sons), his wife decided to leave the marriage without much overt conflict. The couple met in a labor-movement organization. At the time (the late 1980s), college students and new graduates dominated the labor movement, but Jihoon and his wife were both only high-school graduates. According to his account, his wife at first thought he was a college graduate, given his standing in the organization. Both sets of parents were living in other towns, so, soon after they began dating, they agreed to live together. After a few months of cohabiting, they married. Given their shared political beliefs and work experiences, marriage was not a difficult decision. Their parents welcomed the marriage in the hopes that it might lead them away from the highly politicized labor movement, whose activists risked jail terms. I returned to the work site [began working for a living] about six months into the marriage. We both had worked in the printing industry before, so we started a printing shop together. However, our management styles were very different. Hers was an aggressive style, and she was not afraid to borrow money [to invest in the business], but I’m the type who has to plan everything in advance, so I wanted to stick to whatever funds we already had.

Jihoon’s wife was very capable and good with computers, which were becoming necessary in the printing industry; she was also decisive and charismatic. Jihoon repeatedly said during the interview that her social

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and occupational skills were outstanding. Nonetheless, because of their different management styles, they separated in their fourth year of marriage and began running separate shops. After another two years and some reconsideration, they reunited and merged their businesses again. So our merged business was large, and she claimed “hegemony” because her share was bigger. You know, she’s the type who is not afraid of getting even private loans [with high interest rates]. It went fine for a while. But in about two years, the Korean economy fell into the IMF era, and it became really hard to run the business. It was difficult even to pay the interest on the debts.

While struggling to save the business, they worked together but slept separately. They already felt very detached from each other, “as if there was a deep valley” between them. After about a year or so, she threw the divorce form at him. She said she could not bear the marriage anymore but did not want to see him ruined because of her. He believed that she was genuine in her concern about his prospects in business and in life and agreed to the divorce. He thought the divorce was really for economic reasons, for example to avoid possible repossession (given their unpaid debts), and so lacked a clear idea about how they should divide their possessions. He was “willing to give her all she wanted, including custody of the children.” Even after the divorce, to pay back their debts, he worked and lived at the shop, eating and sleeping in one corner. Jihoon said there was no domestic violence during the marriage. He now realized that her genuine motive for divorce may not have been related to the business but to her feelings about him. Toward the end of the interview, he claimed that an economic shock like the IMF recession played a crucial role in divorce rates and speculated that economic stability could salvage many rocky marriages. Chanho (male, ten years of marriage, age thirty-four, one daughter) was born in the late 1950s and therefore one of the oldest of the interviewees. He first met his wife at a college graduation party, which he coordinated for the mostly male seniors when he was a junior majoring in business management. His future wife, enrolled in a prestigious university, attended the party as the partner of one of the graduating class. About a year later, in the last month of his mandatory military service

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and right after Chanho had broken up with a girlfriend, he met her again by chance. Their relationship developed quickly, and they married after only six months. She was twenty-five, which at the time was considered the threshold age for marriage among women. Her parents were anxious about their daughter’s age and approved the match even though he did not yet have a job. At the time, she was working at a conglomerate clothing company. When I was discharged from the military in June, it was still a few months until the recruiting season, which started roughly in September. So I got to do a lot of housework. I would cook dinner and wait for her, but often she came home late after various after-work gatherings. So we quarreled frequently. I was upset and decided to get any job I could instead of waiting until the recruiting season. A friend’s uncle helped me land a government position as a special hire.

Chanho’s salary was much smaller than salaries at the conglomerate companies, and his duties included traveling to the branch offices in various regions of the country and visiting the hospitals in those areas. The visits were usually followed by gatherings for dinner and drinks. As he very much liked to drink, he came home late frequently. Their quarrels continued, and their relationship deteriorated. She repeatedly told him to find a better-paying job in one of the conglomerate companies. However, he soon received a substantial raise, combining regular and irregular overtime earnings, and no longer felt he needed to change his job. Then a critical event occurred. His father’s business had been slowing for a few years and in the fifth year of Chanho’s marriage finally went bankrupt. His parents lost everything, and his parents and his younger siblings suddenly had no place to live. “I told my wife that they’d better live with us.” She refused. Their relationship worsened, and the quarrels became loud and violent. “She was very assertive, and I thought I should not lose control in the relationship, and so I was told by the people around me.” He even hit her on a few occasions, but she would not back down, instead getting more aggressive. “So I threw things and broke things because a man really cannot hit a woman.” Finally, in the seventh year of marriage, she left, and after about two years of separation they were divorced. “Our relationship was never really good during the marriage. Thinking back, I was rather mindless. I should have been

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more serious about how to restore the relationship. We did not know how to control ourselves then, which I do know now after all this time.” At the same time, he reflected, “It would not be easy for a wife with her upbringing to live with the husband’s bankrupt parents and two younger siblings or even to allow her husband to support the in-laws out of his earnings.” He suspected that a contributing factor to her decision to divorce was his underperformance as a provider. In Kim, Won, et al.’s (2005) case 1 (male, twelve years of marriage, age thirty-nine, two sons), the interviewee and his wife both had a highschool education. He worked irregularly as a manual laborer; she worked as a hairdresser. In much of his narrative, he confessed his faults but seemed to argue that they were minor or simple mistakes, although they resulted in divorce. According to him, the couple’s conflict was over their childrearing styles. When he got upset with the children’s misbehavior, his wife would criticize him for not being more affectionate toward the children. The quarrels sometimes escalated to violence, and she left home a few times to stay with her sister. He was also upset when his wife came home late from work. Looking back, he said, he meant to express his concern about her having to work so late, but instead he showed only anger. Eventually, she left home for good. When she was gone, he stopped working even irregularly in order to take care of the children. About a year later, his wife took the children. He wanted to reunite, but his wife refused, and they divorced. These stories imply that the wives’ unfulfilled expectations of hypergamy led them to initiate divorce, often hastened by the husband’s rough style of interaction. Virtually no couple in the sample sought any professional counseling, either to salvage the marriage or to assess the possible consequences of divorce. Such services are not readily available, but they are also probably viewed as irrelevant. The decisions of the wives were less about what would come in the future than about their past or present experiences of unmet expectations. Here are a few more cases from several records of judicial divorces describing wives leaving their resource-poor husbands. Seoul Family Court case 26 (thirteen years of marriage, two children) is a prime example. The husband had been a white-collar employee but, without discussing the move with his wife, quit his job to care for his mother when she developed colon cancer. His mother improved, but

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he was unable to find a job comparable to the one he had left and began tutoring secondary-school students. The wife was also teaching English to young children, and the two had a stable income. With limited prospects for his employment in a formal sector, the wife suggested that the family immigrate to Canada. This man discussed everything with his parents first and had authoritarian attitudes toward his wife. His parents told her to leave their son when they heard him complain about her, including her coming home late from work and suggesting immigration. She proposed a divorce, but instead of consenting to it, he got rougher verbally and physically, pulling her hair, squeezing her neck, and coercing her into sex. She filed for divorce, and he countersued, arguing that she was selfish and contemptuous of him and his parents, that she did not fulfill her obligations as a family member (for example, attending family events and preparing meals), and that she was always demanding a divorce. The court sided with her, finding that the husband had endangered his family’s economic survival by quitting his job and therefore was at greater fault, and granted her the divorce based on Clause 6 of Article 840 (“other significant reasons making it difficult to continue the marriage”). In Seoul Family Court case 31 (twelve years of marriage, two children), both spouses were doctors of traditional East Asian medicine, each running their own clinic. After the wife appeared on a TV program, her clinic became popular; meanwhile, his clinic was failing due to the economic recession. The husband spent more and more time at adults-only computer-game rooms and often came home late or stayed out overnight. Eventually, she ended up paying for all of their living expenses. After a while, the two consented to divorce and signed the form. He was supposed to file the paperwork, as she was busy preparing to study abroad and leave the country with the children, but he did not do so. While studying abroad, she lived with another man and gave birth to a baby. When she returned to Korea and found her marriage legally intact, she had to bring the case to court, and the divorce was granted. In Seoul Family Court case 129 (four years of marriage, no child), the husband quit his job only a few months after marriage. His wife continued to work as a textile designer and paid for all their household

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expenses, including giving him his pocket money. For a few years, he did not work at all, and he would retreat to his computer room for more than a week at a time whenever the couple had a quarrel. His mother and elder sister suggested he open up a café. He did not listen to them initially, but about a year before the divorce, he took a training course to become a barista and started working part-time. Despite this step, he did not put his earnings, which were only about a third of hers, toward their living costs. Still, the court found his lack of assistance with household expenses blamable and granted the divorce filed by the wife, despite the fact that he owned the condo where they lived. The ruling underlines that the court considers the husband’s provider role to be a basic component of the marital agreement. Daegu Family Court case 35 (nine years of marriage, two children) is similar. Soon after the marriage, the husband quit his job. The wife ran a small business, a cram school for music lessons, and it thrived. For the entire duration of the marriage, she provided for the family while he kept starting new small businesses, all of which failed. His wife eventually demanded that he find a paid-employee position, but he refused because he was aiming at a large income as an entrepreneur. After some years, the wife filed for divorce, and the court granted it, based on Clause 6, ruling that the marital relationship had collapsed because he was economically inept and lacked a sense of responsibility. The rulings on these cases reaffirm two principles. First, a husband’s unwillingness or inability to provide for the family constitutes a court-designated “fault.” If men are perceived as not making a sincere attempt to earn a living, it can be grounds for divorce. This is the case regardless of whether the husband has transgressed in any of the ways defined in Clauses 1 through 5 of Article 840, such as exercising violence (although a husband’s difficulty breadwinning is often accompanied by other behavioral issues, as shown throughout the book). The Civil Law in Korea is supposed to follow social customs, and the court clearly identifies the male’s provider role as the social custom. Second, Clause 6 of Article 840 specifies as grounds for divorce a fairly wide range of marital problems, under the provision that the plaintiff’s fault is no heavier than the defendant’s. The clause has the effect of relaxing the fault-based principles of divorce in Korea.

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self-seRv ing w i v es w ho a R e fina nci a lly in Depen DenT Some wives who are stably employed or possess wealth—whether personally amassed or inherited from their parents (including, in some cases, anticipated inheritance)—may perceive themselves as contributing more than they expected to, especially compared to housewives. Given the male-provider norm, it is presumed that husbands’ incomes are for supporting the family. In contrast, working women may perceive their employment as optional or in lieu of their husbands’ employment, regardless of their reasons for working. This leads to the presumption that they can spend the money they earn as they like, either for selfindulgences (such as conspicuous consumption, gambling, or extramarital affairs) or for controlling their spouses (making various personal demands of the husband or placing constraints on the husband’s lifestyle or daily life). The following case exemplifies such circumstances. In Seoul Family Court case 134 (eleven years of marriage, one child), the husband grew up in a relatively poor family, while the wife was from an affluent family. The couple met in college and married after they graduated. He was a medical doctor in training to be a specialist in heart surgery, and she was a teacher aspiring to be a university professor. For the first six months they lived with her parents, who then helped the couple pay for a long-term lease (jonse) on their own home in a wealthy neighborhood of Seoul. The couple’s many occasions of conflict included her complaints about their sending remittances regularly to his parents, who lived in another town, and her saying, “I married you because you asked me to,” or “I married you only because I felt sorry for your circumstances.” Being a resident doctor, he was very busy and came home only once a week. Her schedule was equally hectic: she was attending graduate school while working full-time as a teacher. When he completed his residency, he had to serve as a public doctor for about two and a half years, as a substitute for mandatory military service. He was posted to a town about five hours from Seoul. The couple and their newborn son initially moved, but in about six months, she and the baby returned to her parents’ home in Seoul. This meant that the husband had to go back and forth to see his family during his remaining two years of public service. In the meantime, she continued her graduate work. Later, he got a job

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in Seoul, but his expectations of cozy family life were not met: she went abroad almost every summer and winter break for professional training. Then she received a two-year study-abroad scholarship for promising young teachers from the city’s Department of Education. All along, he had been dreaming of “living like a family” someday, and he objected to another long separation. She went anyway, taking the child for the first year and then leaving the child with her parents for the second year. For that two-year period he lived in a room at a single-room-occupancy (SRO), while she and her parents bought a condo, in her name, with the money that they had retrieved from the long-term lease. Later, when the issue of divorce first came up, her mother took additional legal steps to ensure the condo was her daughter’s possession. When the wife came home during breaks, she stayed with her parents, who were raising the couple’s son; the husband refused to join them and remained in his SRO. One day, while in Korea, she happened to see a text message to her husband from a nurse. It read: “A little nurse is now busy doing her makeup in the subway as she will assist with samchon’s operation today, haha.” Suspecting that her husband was having an affair, she confronted him, upset. He explained that because the heart-surgery unit had such a small staff, they became close, and he was called samchon (literally, a younger brother of either parent) because he was the youngest surgeon. In response, the wife emailed a senior doctor at the hospital to ask him to supervise her husband (while she was abroad) to prevent him from having an affair with the nurse. In the past, she had called the principal doctor of the clinic to request a pay raise for her husband. This time, the husband tried to stop her, but she threatened him with the possibility of her writing further emails. In the meantime, she completed her study abroad and got a job as a professor, but he refused to move out of his single room to be reunited with her. On one occasion, when she and her mother brought food to his single room, he refused to accept it or even let them in, and they ended up yelling at each other in the street in front of the SRO. By the time he filed for divorce, against her objections, they had been separated for four years. The court ruled that the two were equally responsible for the situation and granted the divorce based on Clause 6 of Article 840. Kibum (male, seventeen years of marriage, age forty-seven, one daughter and one son) met his wife at college. She was a sophomore

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when he returned to school after two and a half years of mandatory military service. They graduated in the same year. When they married two years later, Kibum was working at an international trading company, where he enjoyed a successful career and repeated promotions. His wife had worked as an office clerk at a construction company, but she quit her job at the time of their marriage. Three years later, while pregnant with their second child, she landed a stable position at a bigger company. When she got the new job, my mother moved in with us and took care of all the housework and childcare. After seventeen long years of marriage, I still don’t understand what the problem was for her. We owned a home, and I never had an affair. It seems there was nothing more we could wish for. But she kept borrowing money to invest or to spend. Her investments totally disappeared more than once. And she would buy expensive things, a name-brand children’s toy set that cost more than three times her monthly salary, name-brand clothes, a mink coat, etcetera, etcetera. Occasionally she threw away a whole bag of old shoes that she no longer wanted.

She worked at a good company, and the banks gave her loans easily. He warned her several times about her expenditures, but she would just get angry and refuse to discuss the matter with him. In about the tenth year of the marriage, he paid off a debt for her because a private loan shark was harassing her. At the time, he demanded she tell him about all her loans; she said she had no more and regretted having ended up in such a poor financial state. “The bad things tend to come all at once,” he continued. Around the time of the private loan, she was having an affair with a married man who worked in her office, which another colleague of hers disclosed to him. I actually sued him for adultery and filed for divorce, but he sincerely apologized and begged me to death not to let others know of their affair. For some reason I agreed to withdraw the divorce lawsuit and close the incident, with my wife moving to another branch office. But similar affairs happened again and again until we finally divorced years later.

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Kibum expressed regret: “Looking back, I should have divorced her after the first incident.” With her reckless consumption and affairs, he had little savings left by the time they divorced. He quietly lamented that he did not really have time to restore his financial position. According to his retrospective analysis, her extremely frugal parents may have been one factor behind her extravagant spending and carefree personal behavior. She once told him that the best thing about being married was being able to spend her own money as she wished. The chronology of Kibum’s marital troubles was long and messy, but the core nature of their marital disruption was her gender-role perceptions, that is, her belief that her steady employment somehow justified her spending sprees and extramarital affairs. The hypothesis that women’s self-serving role perceptions lead to divorce is different from the proposition that divorce results from women’s economic independence. The latter postulates that economic resources allow women to leave bad marriages; the former suggests that independent women behave in such a way as to trigger marital breakdown without having a clear intention to leave their marriages. In this context, women’s actions leading to divorce do not reflect liberal attitudes but instead are variant outcomes of the rigid application of the traditional gender division of labor. At the same time, there is a commonality between the two hypotheses: unlike the husband’s earnings, wives’ earnings are not meant for the family but for the women’s own use—for their own independent living or for their children but not necessarily for their dependent spouses. In Kim, Won, et al.’s (2005) case 2, reporting an interview with a husband (twelve years of marriage, age forty-five, two daughters), the wife was the plaintiff. The husband described personality differences between the spouses: he was a deep thinker; she had a hot temper. Their relationship worsened when his printing business collapsed during the IMF-induced economic recession. Even though the husband, with a junior-college education, worked hard in multiple temporary jobs, his wife was ashamed of being on the welfare rolls. She then attended a vocational cram school for three years and eventually received a license as a Japanese-language tour guide. The husband supported her while she was in school by doing childcare and housework. However, once his

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wife got a job that paid more than he earned, they began living separate lives under the same roof. When she was home, she would spend time chatting on the internet, where she soon met a boyfriend. Despite the husband’s initial objections, he had to accept the divorce she demanded. According to his account, his wife wanted to end their marriage as soon as she realized that all around her were other men with well-paid jobs. The last interviewee in this section is the only wife in the sample who claimed that her decision to divorce was attributable to her husband’s insistence on “traditional female roles.” Yet her contradictory reasoning about gender roles is apparent. Haejung Yu (female, seven years of marriage, age thirty-five, one son [Kim, Song, et al. 2005]) was in graduate school and preparing to study abroad when she met her husband, who was working at the time but also preparing for overseas graduate study. They married but did not go abroad, because her husband decided to reenter college with a different major. For three years in a row, he failed the entrance exams. He began working as a home tutor for middle-school students, which he initially planned to do just until he entered college but was still doing at the time of their divorce. In the meantime, she finished her graduate program and received a PhD while working as a part-time lecturer. With the support from the husband’s wealthy parents and the couple’s combined earnings, meeting their living expenses was not a problem. By her account, Haejung initiated the divorce because of her husband’s extremely persistent demands that she perform traditional female roles, against her egalitarian ideals. Her husband insisted that she should devote herself to motherhood even while she was working; for example, she needed to be home by the time their son got home from school. Nonetheless, her account also revealed that he had actively participated in caring for their son and in the housework, doing various household chores. He had also steadfastly supported her graduate study, including driving her to and from school. In her complaints about his expectations of gender roles, she did not acknowledge his contribution to the housework and childcare or his support for her schooling. Daily battles occur in many families with working wives, but apparent in this case is her self-serving perception as a working woman—the feeling that she deserved more than what her marriage could offer. At the same time,

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her nonbreadwinner husband may have exerted excessive control over her as a way to defend his masculine identity.

DepR esseD housew i v es In contrast to working women who consider themselves overachievers, some relatively young full-time housewives feel inadequate because they do not work. Less than half of young married women in their twenties and thirties participated in the labor force in 2000 (the rate has increased rapidly since then), but most unmarried women of comparable ages (comprising the majority of this age group) did so. Depending on her frame of reference, a young full-time housewife may doubt her value in contemporary Korea, where notable changes have occurred in women’s status (see chapter 2). The characterization of depressed housewives occurred to the author while watching a TV reality program3 featuring couples in marital crisis. Each couple was filmed for several weeks, and the program was broadcast over two nights for an hour each day. One show featured a young wife who felt her life as a full-time housewife to be empty. The presence of a three-year-old daughter did not make much difference. Her husband was working full-time as a self-employed manual laborer, delivering things to small shops and restaurants across the country. The couple bickered frequently and had little genuine conversation. The husband was exhausted by his long drives and hard labor and frustrated by his wife’s moodiness and lack of motivation. Employment is not the norm for married women in Korea, yet the show demonstrated that years of full-time domestic work can deprive women of meaning and stimulation in their daily lives. The program was designed to show how marital relationships can improve through therapy, and the marriage ultimately survived. The marriages portrayed in this section, in which the spouses did not seek any professional assistance, ended in divorce. Hyunmi (female, six years of marriage, age thirty-one, one son) married her high-school sweetheart a few years after graduation, after they had dated for five years. She had never worked until the time of her divorce. After his mandatory military service, her husband quit college to start a small business selling health food. She said that her husband

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was not exactly her type, but he was kindhearted, good-looking, and economically stable, with inherited wealth, and he had a respectable family background. Hyunmi was the one who hastened the marriage. Within two years, she gave birth to a son, and their relationship remained good for a while longer. The problem started in the fourth year of marriage. Because he was running his own business, he could not spend time with the family. He frequently went to bars to mingle with buyers and other business-related persons and would not come home until two or three o’clock in the morning. Often I picked a fight, complaining about his not being home so much of the time. We had the same arguments repeatedly, and it felt like we were not living together. I thought I would rather live alone so I could live my own life. He was the type of person that did not say anything. He just avoided me. Several times I brought up the issue of divorce, and at some point he agreed.

Only later did she hear that his business was not doing well at the time of their marital troubles and that he had some business-related debts. She now suspected this was the reason he agreed to the divorce. “He was the type of person who did not confide his difficulties to anyone,” she added. Her husband did not behave in any of the controlling or self-indulgent ways reported of many other husbands in the sample. Hyunmi’s frustration had a lot to do with being left alone at home with the baby for long hours every day for years. In Supreme Court case 64, the court approved a divorce filed by an unfaithful wife. The court interpreted the husband’s objection to the divorce as stemming from a desire for vengeance rather than from a genuine intention to restore the marital relationship. The wife was a fulltime housewife and had two children with her doctor husband. About ten years into the marriage, the wife began going out to dance, and she left home at least three times for about twenty days each time over the next decade. She once attempted suicide during her time away from home. After she returned that time, the household received threatening calls from an unknown man. The wife then left home again with the family’s entire savings of approximately 230,000,000 Korean won (about 230,000 US dollars). A couple months later, the husband found her drinking with a few men at a bar and publicly hit her with a champagne

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bottle and slapped her. At some point, the husband accused her of theft, and she was convicted. Throughout the court process, he insisted that she be punished with the highest penalty. During the divorce litigation, he even said that his reason for objecting to the divorce was to prevent her from remarrying. The court sided with her and granted her divorce petition. In the entire sample of this book, this wife was the only person known to have attempted suicide. Given the extremely violent reactions of the husband to her behavior described in the ruling (hitting her with a phone he was using, hitting her with a bottle, dragging her around, and slapping her in public), it is possible that he might have been an abuser, but the ruling has no record of physical abuse until she began leaving home for days on end. Her frustrations from having been a full-time housewife for ten years resulted in divorce only after a series of dramatic events. The case of Yujin (female, nine years of marriage, age thirty-seven, one son and one daughter) shows how a full-time housewife who feels inadequate about her role might readily give up on her marriage when an external shock hits the family. Yujin was working at a bank after graduating from a girls’ vocational high school specializing in commerce when she met her husband, then a college student. After college, he spent two years in mandatory military service, and then the two became engaged. Their marriage occurred almost ten years after they first met. Around the time they married, he started his own small business constructing plastic hothouses for farmers. There was no such thing as a honeymoon period. He devoted all his time to his new business and was dismissive of family life altogether. Almost every evening, he had some gathering where he would eat and drink with his current and potential clients, and he often came home in the early hours of the morning, be it one, two, three, or four o’clock. I had to take care of all the domestic issues. It was really tiring, and often I felt gloomy. But I contained everything inside me and tried not to pick fights with him. Then, the business went under. I began working as an insurance salesperson. At the same time, we decided to do a fake divorce to protect some of our assets. We sold our home, which was in his name, and got a new place on jonse [long-term lease] in my name. At first, it was a fake divorce, which I actually suggested to him because I was under heavy stress.

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Then Yujin learned that he had been seeing a woman on and off for almost two years before his business went bankrupt. The woman worked at one of the places the husband frequented for nightly gatherings. Yujin said, “He was not a bad person by nature, but my trust in him was broken.” She proposed they consider their fake divorce an actual one. He admitted his fault, sincerely apologized, and asked her to reconsider. He emphasized that he had agreed to her suggestion of fake divorce because of their creditors, not because he actually wanted one. Nonetheless, while the business was closing down, he stayed with his girlfriend— to avoid creditors, he said. She did not want to get back together with him and refused to reconsider. As she summarized it, “You know, at first, it was so easy to divorce legally, and then that was it.”

W In a very small set of dissolved marriages, the wives tried to define the marital relationships strictly in their own terms. In the sense that their role expectations were not based on the traditional division of labor between the genders, these wives were experimenting with alternative models of gender roles beyond typical egalitarian ideals. One wife showed unusually strong solidarity with the members of her family of origin. Another wife entered marriage with the agreement that she would not bear a child for personal reasons little understood by her husband. Lastly, some wives brought on marital troubles through their solitary decisions regarding the family finances, either by making risky investments or by selling family property without consulting their husbands. The case of Dongcheol (male, eleven years of marriage, age forty, two daughters and one son) shows how a wife’s strong loyalty to her family of origin triggered marital breakdown. He met his wife at a professor’s office when he visited his alma mater. Several months later, when he announced his marriage plans, this same professor expressed serious concerns about his future bride and her family. The professor told him that their family backgrounds were dissimilar and that she had dated another man for several years but did not marry him because both families were impoverished. Dongcheol ignored the advice, but thinking back, the professor had foreseen his marital troubles.

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Dongcheol began noticing some serious conflicts between his wife and his parents within a year after marriage. His wife did not get along with his parents or siblings. But then the couple went abroad together for his graduate studies. For about nine years, until they returned to Korea, he considered their marital relationship to be good. It was not long after they came back that his mother-in-law and an elder sister-in-law asked him to come over. When he went, they suggested to him a “grand plan.” They told me that with money that my father would give me, I should lease a small three-story building on jonse [long-term lease]. Then we would remodel the building so that they could set up a cram school, a skin-care shop, and a nursery center on the lower floors, and we would all live together on the top floor. I had never heard about this plan before, and my wife had not told me of any such idea. Outright, I objected to the plan, for two reasons. First, the idea of my father giving me money had come from just one passing statement he’d made (which my wife happened to have heard). I told them, “The money you consider as mine is not really mine but my father’s.”

His second objection was that their planned businesses seemed like poor prospects. It was right after the IMF economic turmoil, and the Korean economy was still not in good shape at all. When he told them that “the start-up cost would not be trivial; to take a simple example, to run a cram school you need to run a van and then you need to hire a driver,” they suggested he could drive the van, as “professors have lots of free time.” Later that day, Dongcheol called his wife and asked her, “What were you thinking?” His wife’s response was unbelievable to him; she challenged him, saying, “Do you even think about your wife’s family? How can I trust you as a husband if you think nothing of my family?” After this incident, she left home to move in with her sister and mother, leaving their two children behind with him. At the time, she was also pregnant with their third child. A few months later, she brought the baby to him but did not stay. She was still breastfeeding but told him, “It’s not a problem; I can wean the baby starting today.” His feelings of betrayal were strong because he thought he had done all he could to support her. While she studied for a year for her skincare license, he actively participated in the housework and childcare to the extent that he delayed his own graduation for a year. Later, he

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learned from his professor that his wife’s father had passed away when the four siblings were young. Their mother had lived apart from them to work, and the four children had relied on one another for survival; their solidarity had been exceptional since then. “So,” Dongcheol bitterly concluded, “for my wife, her siblings were more important than her children.” When it was clear that he was firm in his objection to their plan, she left home. It is ironic that this assertive wife considered the children as part of their father’s extended family. Or was her husband correct when he accused her of marrying him mainly to gain access to his wealth and social status? In the second case, Soojin Lee (female, five years of marriage, age thirty-two, no child [Kim, Song, et al. 2005]) grew up in a not very affluent family. Perhaps influenced by leftist ideologies (as were many Korean college students during the 1980s), she found it rewarding to help poor friends and neighbors with her earnings. Indeed, before she married him, her husband was one of the friends she helped. I did not want to marry. Instead I wanted to save money to go back to school to study art. But my father was introduced to a man and insisted [on me] marrying him. To avoid that marriage, I decided to marry one of the guys I knew. My parents did not like the person I picked very much but eventually said OK. At the time of the marriage, my husband agreed to my condition that I would study art after I earned some money and would not bear a child.

She successfully ran a small international trading business, and after about four years of marriage she helped pay off the mortgages for their home and her parents-in-law’s home. That’s when her husband and his parents began raising the issue of “the baby.” She felt betrayed and told him she would give him one year to think about it but would divorce him if nothing changed. After one year, neither had changed their position. When she announced her intention to divorce him, he alternately begged, cried, and beat her for a full night. That was the end. She left home and never went back. For whatever reason, Soojin did not go back to school to study art after the divorce, as she originally planned. Instead, she married another man with children from his previous marriage and was raising them.

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The convictions of these two women did not allow room for negotiation with their spouses. In addition, they both rejected an identity as a mother. For Soojin, interestingly, she accepted the responsibility of raising children in her second marriage. Whatever the significance of childlessness for her, she sought the divorce because her husband refused to abide by her terms. Unsuccessful attempts to establish their dominance in the marital relationship also led to divorce for another group of women, whose solo financial decisions resulted in marital conflicts. These women either made risky investments or sold family property without consulting their husbands in advance. For wives who quit their jobs, producing income or managing the family finances may remain an important component of their self-identity. Another case, Busan Family Court case 80 (three years of marriage, both age thirty-three, no children), is similar in that the wife was apparently unbending in pursuing interests of her own. Before they married she had told her husband, whose parents were Buddhists, that she was not religious. However, she had been a member of a sectarian Christian church’s study group in college, and her interest in the church revived after their marriage. As her devotion to the church increased, she began attending its biweekly meetings, one of which she hosted in the couple’s home. Furthermore, for religious reasons, she refused to participate in any family gatherings with her in-laws, whether ancestor-worship services or birthdays. These acts caused marital conflicts. The husband filed for divorce, and the court granted it, as the wife expressed her intention of continuing her religious lifestyle. Chapters 3 and 4 have illustrated a dozen or so types of marital dynamics stemming from gender-role perceptions, which are subsumed under two broad categories: men’s provider anxiety and women’s contradictory role perceptions. This chapter illustrated cases where ambiguous or transitional expectations about women’s roles allow wives to hold contradictory role perceptions, which in these cases led to marital issues. There may be more types of marital dynamics that are not captured in this book but that belong to these two categories. In any case, a majority of the 130 or so divorces in the sample can be explained by these two broad categories of role perceptions. Obviously, the reality is much more complex and multidimensional than suggested by these prototypes. Indeed,

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many cases display a combination of types, and sometimes both spouses have issues in their gender-role perceptions simultaneously. Further, considering that the sample is not random, this book argues that these gender-role perceptions serve as an important mechanism of how marriages break down but does not claim that they explain all the divorces in the country. The patterns of role perceptions identified in these two chapters suggest that, with minor exceptions, divorce is not the outcome of women marching toward egalitarian gender relations. Rather, it is a process in which men and women who perceive their role performances as not fitting (traditional) gender-role norms attempt to restore their self-identity. Infringements of the marital contract and the ensuing breakdown of these relationships are by-products of self-identity verification. Instilled with expectations about gender roles, married persons may miss the opportunity to strengthen their relationships in instances of poor role performance. In an ideal alternative culture of flexible and egalitarian gender roles, self-identity would not be threatened regardless of one’s role performance, and it would not be necessary to break the marital contract to verify one’s self-identity. Chapter 6 introduces divorce cases that involve infidelity or domestic violence, two major types of “culpability” that the divorce law defines as grounds for divorce. The underlying dynamics of marital relationships leading to these divorces are the same as those described in this and the previous chapter: men’s provider anxiety and women’s paradoxical role perceptions. First, however, chapter 5 will address how the beliefs and actions of married couples’ parents can add another layer to the gendered marital dynamics that lead to divorce.

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chapter 5

The Extended Family Disharmony

P

revious studies, as well as anecdotal evidence including television dramas and movies, indicate that parental involvement in their adult children’s marital conflicts and dissolution is fairly common in Korea. This chapter attempts to explain how in-law conflicts—arguably a structural outcome of the traditional extended family—lead to marital disruption in contemporary families. One of the reasons for divorce listed in the divorce-registration form is “family disharmony,” which refers to marital conflicts involving extended family members. Disharmony may occur with any of the in-laws but typically involves the parents-in-law, particularly the mother-in-law. Although the percentage of all divorced couples who report “family disharmony” as the (main) reason for divorce is not high, the very existence of the category as one of the seven choices given in the form (together with infidelity, abuse, economic problems, health problems, personality differences, and other; see appendix B) reflects the importance of in-law conflict as a cause of marital disruption in the country. Family scholars in Korea argue that the structure of the traditional family system had many elements promoting the harsh treatment of daughters-in-law by their mothers-in-law, treatment that usually started at the time of marriage and could last for many years.1 Similar practices are observed in contemporary Korea. What is new in recent years is the expansion of in-law conflicts to the son-in-law as well, which was unthinkable under the traditional family system but has now become fairly common in bilateral family practices.2 In rare instances, the

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spouses’ siblings are involved in marital conflicts, but more often siblings act as parental surrogates, meaning that sibling-in-law conflicts fit into larger disputes with the parents-in-law. This chapter proposes two hypotheses that will be instrumental in understanding the role of in-law conflict or family disharmony in divorce: the “mother-identity hypothesis,” which concerns the position of the mother in traditional and contemporary Korean families, and the “corporate-group hypothesis,” which expands on earlier research findings about adult children’s support of their elderly parents. These theses describe family practices that bind the two generations together, and they are combined with the thesis of marital breakdown proposed in this book to make sense of parental involvement in adult children’s marital dissolution. This chapter will show that “family disharmony” is another manifestation of the “compressed modernity” discussed in chapter 2, in which modern and traditional ideals/traits collide. In some sense, family disharmony is a by-product of the same institutional arrangement that promotes children’s well-being.

moTh eR hooD in Th e fa m ily In the traditional Korean family, a woman would leave her family of origin upon marriage and join her husband’s extended family, where, as a new member with no consanguineal ties, she would occupy the lowest position in the family’s gender- and generation-based hierarchy.3 She was expected to let herself be absorbed into the lifestyle and values of her new family and to serve them loyally. Her mother-in-law, who had once been in a similar position, was now the manager of all domestic matters (food, clothing, living quarters, etc.), including supervising and disciplining the female members of the household. Absolute obedience by the daughter-in-law was the rule, and it was considered inappropriate for her to express opinions or emotions, as reflected in the old saying, “Be mute for three years, be deaf for three years, and be blind for three years.” Her husband was also expected to obey his parents, but the principle of gender hierarchy was strict between spouses, and his behavior was outside her control.

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Producing a son and heir to the family was an important step toward a rise in status for young wives. Having multiple sons was preferable, but at least one son was essential. The birth of a son legitimized the mother’s presence in the husband’s patrilineal family and helped her move up in the family hierarchy. Hence, a mother’s attachment to her sons went beyond ordinary motherly love for children. Over time, as the parentsin-law got older, her status as the wife and then mother of the next generation of patriarchs gradually rose. On the occasion of her son’s marriage, she was forced to face a potential competitor who might diminish her son’s loyalty to her. In turn, the mother-in-law’s harsh training of her new daughter-in-law, including efforts to enforce the gender hierarchy and hence distance between the newly married spouses, maintained the traditional family organization.4 Over the past half-century, family law has gradually adopted gender egalitarianism. For example, sons and daughters are now treated equally in inheritance; housewives are awarded a greater share of the family property if they divorce; and the hoju system, a mostly symbolic yet official extended family system that identified a family patriarch who had certain rights and obligations that set him apart from, and over, the other members, has been abolished (see appendix A).5 Despite all these revisions, the role of “mother” has resisted change and is still considered important. Contemporary Korean mothers’ bonds with their children are as strong as ever,6 presumably given mothers’ increasingly important role in their children’s socioeconomic achievement, as postulated in the corporate-group model discussed next. Married women’s relatively low rate of labor-force participation in Korea, which is particularly low among college-educated women, allows them to devote time to their children.7 While the causal direction of this relationship is unclear, married women’s rate of employment and mothers’ time spent on children seem to reinforce each other. Thus, the importance of motherhood or “mother identity” is a legacy from the traditional patrilineal family that remains strong, particularly among middle-class married women. What is new in recent years is that mother-daughter bonds have become as strong as mother-son bonds. In the traditional family, once the daughters married, they were considered chulga oein (married outsiders). While some patriarchal family

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traditions remain active in the country, there is a noticeable change related to lifelong relationships between daughters and parents.

chilDR en ’s eDucaTion a n D in TeRgen eR aTiona l w ea lTh TR a nsfeR: Th e coRpoR aTe-gRou p moDel in Th e gloBa lizing econom y The hypothesis characterizing the family as a corporate group was originally developed to explain adult children’s support for their elderly parents in East Asian countries, but it provides a general framework for explaining intergenerational resource transfer in both directions.8 The basic premise of the model is that parents and children engage in a longterm exchange relationship to maximize family benefits in the context of two structural conditions: an economic environment with high returns on education and a culture that supports strong intergenerational ties, which ensures children’s repayment of parental investment. Under such conditions, the best strategy for a family would be that the parents invest in the children’s education and professional training, often long into adulthood and that, in turn, the adult children repay the investment by sharing the returns on their human capital in times of parental need, such as old age. This economic unity between parents and children is beneficial typically during periods of rapid economic growth but also when economic growth slows; for example, the importance of human capital is even greater in today’s globalizing neoliberal economy. If adult children functioned as old-age insurance for parents during earlier periods of economic development, then middle-class parents’ expectations of their children in the contemporary, more advanced economy center on the children’s success, which itself is a reward to the parents. Korean parents’ extraordinary fervor for their children’s education can be understood in the context of this familial and social environment. Korea lacks natural resources and emphasizes the importance of human capital to fuel economic growth. Although global competition for limited economic opportunities has prompted parents around the world to invest more resources in their children’s education in recent years,9 parental involvement in education has had some unique aspects

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in Korea. First, enthusiasm for education is fairly universal across classes and regions, and this national atmosphere drives parents who have the resources to devote even more time and money to their children’s achievement. In the United States, for example, the literature describes important class differences in parenting practices, with middle-class parents engaging in concerted cultivation of children’s talents and cognitive capacities. Working-class or poor parents, by contrast, trust the power of children’s natural growth.10 In Korea, class differences are of quantity rather than of quality and are determined mainly by the amount of time and wealth available to the parents. In a national survey, for instance, as much as a third of all fathers with children in primary or secondary school said they have considered sending their children abroad for their education, although the percentages vary somewhat by the father’s educational attainment.11 As another example, divorced working-class mothers stated they would prefer a cash subsidy so they could send their children to the same cram schools that middle-class children attended, instead of the free after-school tutorial services the government currently provides.12 To give a final example, even in remote rural areas, primary schools invite native English-speaking teachers from abroad to teach their students “authentic” English, including speaking and listening skills, in addition to grammar and vocabulary. According to a graduate student who worked as a foreign teacher, village children go to multiple cram schools after regular school to study art, music, and various academic subjects, just as urban children do.13 Such a competitive environment pushes middle-class mothers to adopt various costly educational strategies, including moving to districts known for good schools; enrolling their children in more expensive, higher-quality cram schools; sending their children abroad to study in English-speaking countries; or moving overseas with their children, thus forming transnational kirogi, or wild-goose, families (so called because the fathers fly seasonally to see their wives and children).14 Second, parents are the major source of educational spending in Korea. The proportion of the total educational expenditure originating from private sources (mostly parents) is much higher in Korea than in other OECD countries.15 The total amount of public subsidies and (public or private) educational loans available is relatively small, and part-time jobs for school-age youth are also limited. These factors all

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indicate the importance of parental resources in financing education. Third, money is only one component of parental investment in children’s education. Whereas middle-class parents in the United States utilize their “global” knowledge about educational institutions and “specific” knowledge about the fit between particular colleges and their children’s performance in order to place their children in the best colleges possible, their counterparts in Korea gather and utilize detailed information about the ever-changing government policies on school curricula and college-entrance processes.16 Nonworking mothers in wealthy neighborhoods form exclusive small groups (of a half-dozen or so) to share information and strategies in hopes of advancing their children to more competitive and prestigious higher-level schools.17 Fourth, parents in whom the social system of long-term familial exchange is ingrained often bequeath some of their wealth to their children well before their own death or even old age. The financing of grown-up sons’ and daughters’ graduate-school education (domestic or abroad), professional training, or business start-up is more the rule than the exception for Korean parents who can afford it. Besides investing in their children’s education, parents typically get their children started in married life, as mentioned in chapter 3. The groom’s parents usually pay for the couple’s first home, as rental units are rare in Korea, and buying or long-term leasing a home is simply too expensive for young couples of any income level. The bride’s parents provide furniture and household appliances and, less commonly, may contribute to the couple’s housing if the groom’s parents are short of funds. In addition, the couple’s parents exchange many wedding gifts and often finance an extravagant wedding ceremony.18 Again, these parental expenditures are more the norm than the exception insofar as parents can afford them, regardless of the marrying couple’s earnings. Middle-class parents who have supported their children in this manner feel they have a stake in the children’s life outcomes. To ensure the best return on their investment, “for the sake of the children’s wellbeing,” which is now part of the parents’ own interest, the parents will be highly involved in their lives. Parents will look for a good mate for their marriage-age children through costly professional matchmaking,19 meddle in their marital lives, and even scheme to end undesirable marriages. The Confucian tradition of filial piety and this long-term, albeit

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implicit, contract encourages adult children to listen to their parents/ mothers. Two corollaries of this corporate-group model are particularly relevant to “family disharmony.” First, adult children’s “well-being” or “success,” which represents their ability to repay parental investment, becomes part of the parents’ interest for the rest of their lives. Second, parents of higher socioeconomic status, that is, those who have invested more in their children, have more at stake than do parents with fewer resources to invest in their children. Thus, a key prediction of the corporate-group model is that parental meddling in children’s marriages will be stronger among middle-class parents with greater resources than among parents of lower socioeconomic status.20 A related prediction is that parental involvement will differ by the gender of the children, given the gendered role expectations in the family. In other words, intergenerational relationships will interact with class and gender dynamics in affecting children’s marital outcomes.

m eDDling By Th e husBa n D’s pa R en Ts Facilitating children’s marriage may increase parents’ overall lifetime gains (as married people are generally better off than unmarried), but why or how do parents contribute to their son’s divorce? The corporategroup model suggests that parents who have stretched their resources to support their children’s education and career (or, to put it subjectively, parents who believe that they have sacrificed their lives for their children) would be conscious of their investment returns being affected by the marriage market as well as by the labor market. Although patrilocal norms (that is, coresidence of parents and married sons) have weakened substantially, the ideal of extended families is still pervasive, owing to the practice of long-term intergenerational exchanges, with the husband’s parents having full authority to interfere in their son’s household. Daughters-in-law are expected at least to pretend to comply with their mothers-in-law’s commands, even while holding different, appropriately unexpressed views. Such gaps in belief systems are understandable if mothers-in-law consider their daughters-in-law as part of their long-term exchanges with their sons and believe that the young couple

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owes them repayment. At the same time, the daughters-in-law of this new generation, who received as much parental investment as did their husbands, consider themselves and their husbands to be equal partners and do not believe they owe any more to their parents-in-law than to their own parents. The outcome of such in-law battles is unpredictable and contingent on various personal and family circumstances, including the amount of resources (wealth, prestige, etc.) on each side of the family and, most of all, expectations about gendered roles held by the two generations. The most extreme outcome is that the younger couples divorce. It is intriguing to observe the passive position of some married sons during the dissolution of a marriage. Sons are obliged to repay parental investment. But the environment created by the competitive globalizing economy in the past few decades has not been favorable to the young working-age population, and many sons probably could not afford to refuse parental involvement. Ironically, while husbands’ perceptions of their own underachievement can lead to compensatory misbehavior (see chapter 3), mothers whose meddling ends in their sons’ divorce may be spurred by their perception that their sons are overachievers. The following three case studies provide examples in which the husband’s parents played a critical role in marital disruption, according to interviews with their daughters-in-law. From the mothers’ point of view, they may have been acting for the well-being of the family, but the interviewees found it hard to bear what they saw as meddling in their everyday lives, accompanied by condescension, insults, accusations, and nagging. Hyunkyung (female, one year of marriage, age thirty-three, no children [Kim, Song, et al. 2005]) met her husband in a hiking club. The two had known each other for about three years when they began dating, and after about six months they married. According to her narrative, the two initially did not have any marital problems, although from the beginning of the marriage her mother-in-law meddled in every little matter, making insulting remarks, and the couple’s relationship began deteriorating accordingly. When the mother-in-law did not like something about her daughter-in-law, she would say things like, “What did your parents teach you?” or “You must have not received proper discipline because you are the youngest child of older parents.” In addition to visiting her parents-in-law every weekend, she had to drop everything to attend to

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them whenever they called. Workplace obligations or business trips were not good enough excuses for her mother-in-law. She added that when her mother-in-law scolded her, she received no support from her husband, and he never apologized for his mother. Instead, he extolled patience. Hyunkyung said, “My husband is the first son and not assertive at all, and he could never go against what his parents said.” It seemed to her that her mother-in-law had wanted to have more input in the selection of her daughter-in-law and that her husband always felt guilty about having chosen his own wife. My husband and I were helping his younger brother pay back a debt my parents-in-law were not aware of. It was so difficult to pay off the debt with our salaries, and my husband suggested we sell the apartment unit my parents-in-law had bought for us. When they heard a word or two about selling the unit, my mother-in-law got hysterical at me, accusing me of wasting money with my extravagant consumption.

Even after the mother-in-law learned about the brother’s debts, she did not apologize. Hyunkyung suspected that her difficulties with her mother-in-law may have contributed to her first pregnancy ending in a miscarriage. She recalled, “You would never believe how painful that was, but neither my husband nor my mother-in-law showed me any warmth.” They blamed her for not taking care of herself. One day I talked to my husband seriously, saying to him that I would be able to bear his mother under any circumstances as long as he supported me but that if he didn’t, there would be no way I could endure the marriage any further. My husband said he could not go against his mother because he is the first son. So I told him I could no longer live with him. Then he slapped my face, saying to me that a woman should never say such a thing. I ran out of the house and wandered around in the dark cold winter night thinking it was over.

When Hyunkyung returned home that night, her mother-in-law was there and told her to leave immediately. Hyunkyung assumed that her husband must have called his mother. Then, in only a matter of days, the divorce process was under way, orchestrated by her mother-in-law.

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Hyunkyung described her surprise: “Yes, I was thinking about ending the marriage, but I did not know it could go ahead that fast.” At the time of the interview, she still thought that her husband had not wanted the divorce but probably lacked the courage to oppose his mother. This case is a typical example of a mother-in-law who believed she had failed in finding her son a resource-rich spouse. Given her time, money, and effort, the mother-in-law expected high returns, but her daughter-in-law, who was from a less affluent family, brought few assets into the marriage other than her current employment. Hyunkyung’s husband’s parents had sent him to college and paid for the couple’s housing. The critical issue was his perception that he owed a debt to his parents, his mother particularly, and that he was not making the expected repayment. Whatever Hyunkyung did, it is likely that she could not have changed her mother-in-law’s perceptions. Her miscarriage aggravated these uncomfortable dynamics. Her husband probably was not aware of this structural background and continued to demand that his wife try to satisfy his mother. Although her situation was different, Haesun (female, seven months of marriage, age twenty-eight, no children) described similar dynamics. She met her husband on an arranged date and married him in a few months, after fewer than ten dates. She was a junior-college graduate working as a hospital nutritionist. He had graduated from a four-year university and was a middle-ranking police officer. She described her marital life in a quiet voice, still unable to understand the divorce. Her mother-in-law came to their home almost every day, sometimes while Haesun was away at work. The mother-in-law and her husband’s elder sister both had keys to the apartment. Haesun’s mother-in-law complained to her son about Haesun’s housekeeping: she did not clean the bathroom or do the laundry often enough, and so forth. He would say to her, “Why don’t we just give in for her sake and listen to her?” Her husband and his parents jointly bought the apartment unit, and perhaps that was why her mother-in-law held on to the key. Haesun did not have the nerve to ask her for the key or even to complain to her husband about it. She was not yet comfortable talking to him about such a thing. “One day, three months after the marriage, my mother-in-law brought her blankets and flower vases to our home,” Haesun recalled. By then she had sensed that her mother- and father-in-law did not get

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along very well, and she thought that their relationship had worsened about that time. So her mother-in-law practically moved in with them. My husband often stayed overnight at work. My mother-in-law was a dominating character, and she found fault with me for every little thing, often while my husband was not home. There was no way I could get along with her. My husband and I were not yet very close with each other. We had not had much time since we married to get closer. With her meddling, we grew further apart. The crucial occasion was when my uncle called upon my husband and asked him to be good to me. Hearing this, my mother-in-law was enraged and criticized my parents with all the bad words she could use.

After this incident, Haesun left home, and she felt she could not go back while her mother-in-law was still there. Her husband asked her to come back, but she refused, saying that his mother was beyond what she could handle. She did not dislike her husband, and their relationship was not that bad, but about two months later they got divorced. In Haesun’s view, her mother-in-law had no intention at all of doing anything to restore their marriage. At the time, Haesun was pregnant but got an abortion with her husband’s consent. This is another case where the husband’s mother was the primary factor in the marital disruption. Both the corporate-group model and the mother-identity hypothesis apply. The mother reared her son and helped buy his apartment. She believed that she had a stake in her son’s well-being and hence in her daughter-in-law’s homemaking. Even Haesun’s semiprofessional career did not provide an adequate excuse for her below-standard homemaking, according to her mother-in-law. The outcome was similar in the case of an interviewee (female, fifteen years of marriage, age thirty-seven, two sons) in Kim, Won, et al. (2005), although this report starts fairly innocuously, with a description of how the wife met her husband at college. He was her first love, and they married against his parents’ objections. She quit her job at the time of marriage. It turned out that he was unable to provide strong financial or emotional support. He received money from his parents, who meddled in every domestic decision. Furthermore, the personalities of the two spouses were quite different. He enjoyed mingling with friends and

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relatives; she wanted a clear separation between the nuclear family and others. She and her husband had difficulties in reconciling their differing viewpoints, each believing her or his way was right. The most unbearable part for the wife was the fact that her parents-in-law, who did not like her before the marriage, always sided with him. She brought up the idea of divorce, and he consented. Not much detail is presented in this account, but it is another example of in-law conflicts exacerbating the couple’s difficulties. The case is similar to the previous two in that the spouses were well educated (that is, their parents had invested in their education) and in that the couple received economic support from the husband’s parents at the time of marriage and afterward, which further legitimized parental meddling. Even the birth of two sons did not seem to reduce her parents-in-law’s dislike of the interviewee. It is ironic that in the traditional family, giving birth to two sons would provide a daughter-in-law with a secure position, but this does not hold true in contemporary Korean families. In the case of Jihwan (male, eight years of marriage, age thirty-eight, no children [Kim, Song, et al. 2005]), his mother did not actively meddle in the couple’s life. It was Jihwan who asked his wife to visit his mother with him and stay overnight every weekend and holiday. For him, even his marriage was a way to meet parental expectations. The couple had different preferences in several aspects of daily life, but the wife’s reluctance to get together frequently with her parents-in-law was one important factor escalating their marital conflict. The wife’s infertility was a critical blow to the marriage. In the case of Taewu (male, two years of marriage, age twenty-nine, no children), his wife initiated the divorce, declaring that she could no longer deal with her in-laws and was “afraid of talking to them.” Taewu and his wife were both college graduates. He worked at a company producing semiconductors, and she worked part time at a nightly cram school, teaching biology to secondary-school students. At the same time, she was studying web design at a vocational training school. In contrast to the previous cases, Taewu’s mother was deceased. The problem for Taewu’s wife was dealing with his remaining family members, who lived in the city where he was born and raised. Taewu had moved to the capital, 150 miles to the north, when he attended college, and

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had remained. His older sister asked the couple to come to their hometown on every major holiday (which means at least four times a year) to visit their father, who lived alone. Taewu’s sister-in-law (the wife of his older brother) tried to help with the cooking and other household tasks whenever the couple came to visit his father, which was kindness from Taewu’s perspective but felt like pressure to his wife. For Taewu’s wife, whatever these two women said to her sounded like meddling and scolding, and what her father-in-law and brother-in-law said did not sound much different. Despite the fact that the interview took place years after the divorce, Taewu said he still did not understand what had been so troubling for her. Taewu’s wife may have experienced something similar to culture shock when she found herself being treated like an inferior by her inlaws. According to Taewu, his wife was smart and pretty and had never been scolded by her parents. She was accustomed to praise and did not like outside meddling in her life. In fact, she did not like to visit her own parents either, even though they lived nearby. At her marriage, however, she entered his extended family’s hierarchy in the lowest position, and her social and educational background made no difference. At the time of the interview, Taewu deplored the decay of Korean family solidarity, which suggests that he may not have been particularly sympathetic to her disinterest in the extended family. Yet he described himself as selfcentered and not having learned much about familial harmony. Apparently, his wife thought there was no way to navigate the in-law pressures or preferred not to fight those battles. She married at age twenty-five and divorced at twenty-seven. The in-law adversity imposed on her was lighter and of much shorter duration than in the other cases, which may suggest the emergence of a new pattern in which rigid in-law expectations about gender roles can more easily break down marriages among the younger generation. Several divorce cases from court rulings also featured unwelcome involvement of the husband’s parents, although the parental meddling may not have been the primary factor in these cases. The relationship trajectories are similar: daughters-in-law do not meet the expectations of the parents-in-law, and the in-law conflicts aggravate whatever spousal conflicts might exist.

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m eDDling By Th e w ife’s pa R en Ts In recent years, Korean parents’ investment in their daughters’ education has become comparable to that in their sons’, and parents who have the resources to do so also transfer assets to their daughters as well as to their sons at various fortuitous times, such as marriage. This is true even though a legacy of patrilineal family arrangements may favor sons over daughters with regard to the overall amount of resources transferred (shares of inheritances are now equal by law, regardless of children’s gender or marital status). In keeping with their investment in their daughters, parents are unlikely to acquiesce to unfair treatment of their daughters by their husbands or parents-in-law. Researchers hear anecdotally that parents sometimes encourage their daughters to leave their marriages if their marital troubles are serious. In other words, the same hypotheses of the corporate group and the mother’s identity are as applicable to the wife’s parents as to the husband’s, though in somewhat different ways. While meddling by parents-in-law is perhaps always affected by their desire to maximize the benefits for their children, meddling by the wives’ parents in particular is intertwined with another layer of marital dynamics, that is, the wives’ and their parents’ contradictory perceptions about women’s roles. As described in chapter 4, ingrained gender norms prescribing that the husband should be the primary provider (through his earnings and/or support from his parents) may lead the wife or her parents to perceive their own economic contribution to the marriage as an “extra” performance of duties, one deserving of special appreciation. Such a perception would make the parents of the wife particularly sensitive to their daughter’s marital troubles. Despite Korea’s lingering legacy of patriarchy and its influence on social norms about gendered roles, there are reasons why parents might invest resources in daughters. First, parents, especially educated parents, may hope that their daughters will live in a more gender-equitable world. Second, the revisions to the family law that have mandated equal treatment of sons and daughters (first unmarried daughters, then married daughters) may have played a role. Third, more practically, many married daughters do not live with their parents-in-law and instead live in close social and geographic proximity with their own parents, which facilitates emotional ties and material exchanges, from food delivery to

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assistance with housework to financial support. Mother-daughter relationships are closer than ever in contemporary families, in contrast to the contentious interactions between mothers-in-law and daughters-inlaw. Last but not least, a daughter’s as well as a son’s marriage is considered an exchange with another family, and parents assume that the daughters in whom they have made high investments will find husbands with high levels of resources. Thus, the expectation is that parental investment will increase the benefits for daughters, and hence for the extended family, in terms of material gains and social prestige. However, comparable investment in daughters and sons is not enough to explain why a wife’s parents would foster their daughter’s divorce. A paradox is that, despite gender-equitable investment by the parents, the daughters and their parents may still believe that such parental investment in daughters is exceptional, unlike the normative investment in the sons. According to an old Korean saying, a son-inlaw is an “eternal guest,” literally, a “one-hundred-year guest,” implying that he should be treated with the utmost prudence and politeness, presumably because his actions will determine the daughter’s well-being. As parental investment in daughters increases, however, the parents of married daughters may develop contradictory role perceptions that leave them oscillating between maintaining the traditional ideal of the eternal guest and rejecting that of the patriarchal husband who treats his wife unfairly and ignores her well-being. What follows is a lengthy case study exposing such contradictory role perceptions. The case of Jaejun (male, one year of marriage, age thirty-one or thirty-two, no children [Kim, Song, et al. 2005]) is based on the husband’s account. He met his wife, who was two years older than him, when he was in college in the United States. They had been friends for about ten years when her engagement to another man collapsed, and the two began to think of marrying each other. Jaejun said, “I had a dream that two spouses could be good friends, and I thought she was the person because we had known each other for a long time.” When they were just friends, he did not know anything about the extent of her family’s wealth. She knew about his father’s business failure, but it became real to her only when they were preparing for their wedding and she saw how deep the economic divide between the two families was. He explained, “Once she got to know of the gap, her complaints were endless, and she

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often made insulting remarks such as ‘I knew your father’s business went under but never realized the extent. The gap in [our families’] standards of living is too wide for me to marry you.’ ” It hurt him to hear such things, but at the time he felt apologetic that he was not able to give her all she wanted: “Because my parents could not afford it, her parents bought a condo unit for us.” In compensating for the housing purchase, he overspent to arrange a nice honeymoon, and he made efforts to care for her during the trip. Yet during the honeymoon, “all she talked about was how her parents had bought a home for us and how she had dreamed of marrying a rich man and becoming a hyunmo yangcheo,” which translates as “wise mother, good wife,” an expression for a devoted full-time housewife. When the honeymoon was over, his wife quit her job, but rather than doing the housework, she reproached him for not letting her hire a housemaid. In the mornings, he left for work while she was still asleep, and in the evenings they ate out if he had not eaten at work. On his return from work, he often found dirty plates and containers in the kitchen sink and her clothes spread around the house. He tried to be understanding because he had refused to hire a housemaid, but he also expected that she would change as time passed. His wife never called her parents-inlaw to say hello or invited home any of his friends or colleagues: “She seemed to think she did not have to call my parents as they bought nothing for her. Actually, in Korea, it is a critical lapse [in terms of social relations] for a newly married man not to invite friends and workplace colleagues to his home. My friends asked me [when I would invite them], and I kept making excuses, like my wife was sick, and so on.” Contrary to his expectations, his wife’s complaints did not subside and instead worsened with time. He gave all his paychecks to her, but she said the income was smaller than the allowance she used to get from her parents before the marriage. And she became angry if he had to do overtime work. One day I had some work to do after office hours but brought it home instead, thinking she might be lonely, and she actually threw away the papers and yelled. At the time, I thought she might be depressed after she quit her work. Then her brother got married, and that was when her complaints reached their peak. It appeared my wife’s parents

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had bought a bigger house for their son and lots of wedding gifts for the couple. My wife grumbled, “What about my sister-in-law is better than me for her to get a bigger house and more wedding gifts from her parents-in-law than I did?” After that, on various occasions she cried, yelled, threw things, and picked fights with me. Really, I wondered if this was the same woman that I had known for ten years.

Things did not get better, and Jaejun decided to ask for help from his mother-in-law—a critical mistake: “After hearing what I said, she responded in exactly the opposite way of what I expected. She said, ‘I never knew my daughter was suffering so much.’ Immediately I realized I should not have talked to her. After that, things only got worse, and my wife repeatedly said, ‘My mom is sorry for me, and she said it is OK for me to call it quits any time I want.’ ” With her mother’s approval, he thought, his wife took practical steps to end the marriage. One day, his wife told him she had taken a morning-after pill, and she admitted to having used them a few times before. She meant she did not want to have a baby with me. That’s when I got really mad and yelled really loudly. It seemed all my built-up frustrations exploded. She then grabbed a knife and brandished it at me, and I slapped her face. She then called her mother and talked only about my hitting her. My mother-in-law rushed to our home and scolded me, saying things like “What did your family do for my daughter?” and “You should be grateful for the house and stuff that we provided for you. How on earth could you hit her?” She never tried to listen to what I had to say. Trying to make her understand the circumstances, I said it was impossible for me to bear it any longer. In response, she told me to leave the house. It was their house, so she said I should leave home, taking my luggage with me.

While this narrative only reflects his point of view, it is clear that both women held paradoxical perceptions about female roles. Jaejun’s wife (and her parents) expected her to be a full-time housewife, yet she (and her parents) also believed, somewhat contradictorily, that her parents’ substantial economic contribution exempted her from doing the housework. Most likely, she would never have accepted the idea that an economic contribution from Jaejun’s parents would exempt him from his

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income-earning obligations. It appears that Jaejun’s wife and her mother wavered between the traditional gender-role ideology (according to this perspective, her parents’ home purchase was an extra and special contribution) and gender-egalitarian ideals (which would assume that her share of the housework should be proportional to her contribution to the marriage through either her work or inherited funds). Both the daughter and her mother appeared to expect gender equity yet assumed that the husband should be the provider. While her complaints about not receiving the expected wealth or gifts might be taken as nothing more than a sign of her immaturity, this narrative instead suggests that Jaejun’s wife used the fact that his family contributed less than hers to the marriage to validate her right to refuse to do housework (even though she had chosen to be a housewife), and her parents used the same fact to justify their right to scold him about their daughter’s unhappiness. Although not as widespread and forceful as meddling by the husband’s parents, involvement of the wife’s parents in marital discord is not uncommon. Even if they do not actually set off a marital breakdown, in-law conflicts often confound whatever issues are troubling the couples. For example, in Seoul Family Court case 134, the husband’s wealthy mother-in-law conspired with her daughter to steer their married life toward meeting the wife’s wishes against his repeated objections (chapter 4). The sample cases examined in this book, along with anecdotal cases and media narratives, suggest that parental involvement in marital conflict and dissolution is fairly common in Korea. This chapter proposes that the hypotheses of the corporate group, mother identity, and gendered role expectations can provide insights into mothers-in-law’s dissatisfaction with their children-in-law. The three hypotheses collectively explain how the legacy of the Confucian culture interacts with the knowledgebased neoliberal economy to reinvigorate a seemingly traditional family feature, in-law conflict, in contemporary Korean families. Adult children who have long been dependent on their parents for their education, professional training, and launching them in married life are not free to reject parental meddling in their marriages. This book postulates that married people who perceive gaps between what is expected of them and their actual performance feel

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their self-identity to be threatened and that this somehow triggers the process of marital breakdown. For parents, it is the perception that their own child is an overachiever—and thus superior to the son- or daughterin-law—that prompts parental meddling. The parents seem to believe that their interventions are on behalf of their children, and they can be straightforward, even blunt, in expressing their dissatisfaction with their children-in-law’s role performance, apparently exercising the authority or power given to the parents as elders in Confucian cultures. The divorces in this chapter’s cases mostly took place in the very early stages of marriage, before the birth of any children; in these cases, the parents in some sense cancelled the marriages. Yet it is not clear whether these parents believed that their children would be better off after divorce. Because the stigma of divorce is much weakened and thus the psychological and social costs of divorce lessened, these relatively well-off parents who move their children quickly to and through divorce may assume that their children will find better spouses in the future. What is apparent is that the parents’ dissatisfaction is not about any absolute level of material resources or social status but about their unmet expectations, which they believe could have been met had their children selected the right mates. It is also noteworthy that the mothers-in-law described in this chapter’s cases did not highly value the employment of their children-inlaw and made an issue of the meager wealth of the associated parents. This may reflect the social environment of contemporary Korea, where parental resources can play an important role in determining a young couple’s standard of living. As couples age, their initial socioeconomic status may be balanced out by their own successes or failures, but at this early stage of marriage, parental assistance may be critical. As such, in the increasingly competitive economy, adult children receiving parental support long into their adulthood have limited options in rebelling against their parents. The adult children of meddling parents in these cases did little to salvage their marriages and instead acquiesced to their parents’ wishes. To keep their marriages intact, adult children may have to renegotiate repayment terms with their parents or successfully encourage their spouses to comply with the parents, but neither scenario may be particularly feasible given the social and familial environment. Their other

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option is to select mates that can fulfill their parents’ aspirations. As such, young adults’ dependence on their parents and parental pressure may partly explain why socioeconomic assortative mating is increasing. In the coming years, in the increasingly competitive neoliberal economy, children’s reliance on parental resources may not decrease, and accordingly parental meddling may not disappear any time soon. Lastly, the findings in this chapter have an implication for divorce patterns in the country. There are widening gaps in marriage and divorce between college graduates and the less educated—that is, less marriage and more divorce among men with no more than a high-school education than among college-educated men (see chapter 2). These gaps, however, may be counterbalanced to some extent by the effects of parental resources. Well-off parents’ disruption of their children’s marriages could reduce, albeit only to a minor extent, the marital-status gaps between more and less educated couples.

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Culpable Spouses

W

hen the two spouses do not consent to divorce per se or do not agree on the terms of divorce, one party may bring the case to court. The philosophy of divorce law in Korea is clear: respect the wishes of the innocent party. In litigation, the court examines the circumstances of marital breakdown, and the court grants the divorce only if the plaintiff’s responsibility (or culpability) for the marital breakdown is no heavier than the defendant’s.1 The major types of “culpable” conduct are defined in the divorce law (Clauses 1 through 5 of Article 840, as discussed in chapter 2 and appendix A). A more culpable plaintiff may be granted a divorce only if the defendant opposes divorce purely “out of feelings of vengeance without any genuine intention to restore the marital relationship.” If culpable defendants genuinely intend to restore the marital relationship, some lower-court judges do not grant divorce and instead encourage couples to salvage their marriage. However, selected rulings from the Korean Supreme Court in recent years have decreed that a divorce should be granted when the plaintiff is no more responsible than the defendant. If both spouses are equally culpable, then divorce may be granted based on Clause 6 of Article 840, “other significant reasons making it difficult to continue the marriage.” Court rulings routinely rephrase this as “continuing the marriage would cause pain” to the plaintiff, which sounds like the no-fault-divorce criterion. Legal scholars forecast a general trend toward more liberal divorce courts that respect individual choices. The basic principle of Korean Civil Law (including family law) is to follow social custom, and the weakening norms against divorce are reflected in the courts, even though the rules supporting the “innocent” party remain alive. Infidelity and domestic violence are the two most frequent types of culpability; this study’s data show that the underlying marital dynamics 99

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in such cases are no different from those observed in earlier chapters. Personality flaws such as self-centeredness or a propensity for violence will obviously affect a marriage,2 but role perceptions and processes of identity verification provide the context in which those personality flaws precipitate marital breakdown. The divorce-registration data show that both spousal infidelity and domestic violence comprise higher percentages of all reasons for divorce among couples divorced in their forties than among those divorced in their thirties or younger and among couples with less education than among those with more education. The rulings tend to be short in cases where one party’s culpability is obvious, and the more informative cases are the ones in which culpability is less obvious or where a complicated history of financial transactions or family relationships required fuller investigation and longer adjudication. Also, judges’ discretion may influence the judicial outcomes to some extent, including alimony awards, postdivorce property division, and child custody, as well as divorce per se.3 While ruling precedents provide the major guidelines in the Korean judicial system, the volume of precedents available for specific cases may be limited, given the low incidence of divorce until fairly recently. The only formal scheme to ensure unbiased rulings is to assign more complicated cases to a three-judge court instead of the usual single-judge court and to require consensus among the judges.

spousa l in fiDeliT y Following the principles of modern legal systems legislating monogamy, the first clause of the fault-based Korean divorce law lists “spousal infidelity” (baeuja bujeong) as grounds for judicial divorce. Until recently, infidelity could also constitute the crime of “adultery,” with sentences of up to several months of imprisonment; in March 2015, the Constitutional Court ruled that the adultery law was unconstitutional because it violated the right to privacy. Under the criminal law, a person could be indicted for adultery only if his/her spouse made the accusation and also filed for divorce. As for any other crime, conviction required confirming evidence, that is, very direct and clear proof of sexual intercourse. As such, it was fairly difficult for ordinary people

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to gather valid evidence to prove spousal adultery, except in some cases of long-term extramarital relationships that resulted in children. More than half a century ago, in the first modern Civil Law of Korea, criminalizing adultery was an extension of the strict regulation of female sexuality.4 By tying the accusation of adultery to the filing for divorce, the law favored husbands; wives, who were socially and economically dependent on their spouses, were unlikely to seek divorce to punish their unfaithful husbands. After 1991, however, when women’s legal position in postdivorce property division was strengthened (see appendix A), the law came to be used by women dealing with their husbands’ virtual double marriages. Yet the adultery law was redundant except for a punitive function, because Clause 1 of Article 840 (spousal infidelity) serves the same purpose for divorce. In fact, “spousal infidelity” is much easier to prove because it is defined more broadly than adultery. “Frequent private meetings with no particular purpose over some sustained period of time” may suffice as grounds for divorce. The “innocent” party filing for divorce can claim alimony (as compensation for psychological damage) in addition to the right to shares in the property that applies in all divorces. In most cases, the alimony is much less than fifty thousand dollars, which is usually only a small fraction of the value of the couple’s property and hence more of a token. In contrast, division of the family property in judicial divorces is based on each party’s relative contribution to wealth accumulation during the marriage, regardless of culpability.

m en ’s in fiDeliT y a s a Displ ay of m a sc u lin e iDen TiT y For the husbands discussed here, extramarital affairs are a way to demonstrate their power over their spouses and to confirm their masculine identity. If their infidelities were caused by physical desire or biological urges, then the men might have been more apologetic to their wives when their affairs became known. Instead, these husbands were confrontational and domineering. Infidelity is often concurrent with domestic violence (and unstable performance as a breadwinner), and these confounding cases are described later in the chapter.

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Infidelity among Husbands with Small Businesses: An external factor affecting spousal infidelity is exposure to opportunities for extramarital encounters. In the United States, having a job in a workplace with many workers of the opposite sex increases one’s chances of marital dissolution,5 and coworkers were common extramarital partners in the sample studied in this book as well. Opportunities are also provided by flexible work schedules and the informal styles of small-business management, including the common practice of eating and drinking with clients and working partners. Furthermore, because small-business owners do not belong to large work organizations such as government offices or private corporations, in which a man’s membership ensures his masculine authority, they may seek other ways to display their masculine identity. In an interview with Jungim (female, twelve years of marriage, two children), she said that she and her husband both majored in physical education at college. After graduation, she worked as a trainer at a fitness center, while her husband sold sportswear. They met through their work and married six months later. She then joined his sportswear business. I had a better sense of fashion than him and was also good at business management. The business at the time was going well. As he had extra time, he spent it on various leisure activities. His gambling started about a year after we married, and then by the fourth or fifth year into the marriage he went on to hunting, fishing, other sports, and perhaps even dating other women, which I did not take very seriously, although we did fight occasionally about the issue. By that time, we had opened four shops across the country, one in Seoul and three in other cities. I was busy with the business, but I also spent time with my friends, both female and male. He was not against any part of my lifestyle. I am sure he trusted that I was faithful to the marriage.

Some years passed, and his leisure activities and dating continued. Jungim knew of several girlfriends he had during this period. However, in the ninth or tenth year of the marriage, she sensed that he had entered into a more serious relationship. This is when she first suggested they divorce: “I think I had some kind of obsession that we should live right, so I proposed divorce. We spent almost a year rethinking our relationship, but I could not forgive him.” They fought a lot, even physically

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hitting each other. Around the same time, the Korean economy collapsed, affecting their business. People stopped their leisure and sports activities first when the economy went into a recession. I was so tired of marital conflicts, as well as business troubles. There seemed to be no future either in the marriage or in the business. I just wanted to close all of those matters. Looking back, maybe my husband was not satisfied with our marital relationship, but I was a fool. Maybe I could have embraced him more like a mother or like an elder sister. Maybe he had such a need. I grew up only receiving love and did not learn how to give love to others. If I were more loving or accepting, things may have been different. I don’t know.

With no plans, she exited the marriage with the two children. This is only her story, but Jungim’s speculation that her husband may have needed some psychological support to remain in the marriage seems insightful, whether that would have been love, as she wondered, or validation of his masculine self-identity. It is apparent that he had become alienated from the business early in the marriage and that they had been growing apart all along. A few relatively older female interviewees (Sojung, Misun, and Yongja) told similar stories. Their self-employed husbands initially left home for the purpose of business but then did not return home to their wives and children, sometimes despite the pleas of their mothers. According to the wives, at some point while doing business away from home their husbands found new women and settled down with them. These wives believed that if the businesses had been successful, the husbands would not have deserted their families. Several court cases demonstrate similar dynamics: Seoul Family Court case 54 (fifteen years of marriage, no children), Busan Family Court case 18 (five years of marriage, one child), Seoul Family Court case 32 (eighteen years of marriage, two children), Seoul Family Court case 348 (fourteen years of marriage, two children), and Seoul Family Court case 105 (eleven years of marriage, two children). The husbands were self-employed, owning or co-owning a small business (for example, restaurants or retail stores), and were divorced by their wives for their

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extramarital affairs. In some cases, the wife filed suit against the husband’s mistress as well, and the court ruled that the mistress must pay compensation to the wife for psychological damage. In all these cases, flexible working hours combined with the men’s need for power over their wives. Husbands with Higher Socioeconomic Status: Most cases in the data show an association between provider anxiety and male infidelity, although abundant anecdotes suggest that infidelity among the economic and power elites is common. This book’s sample includes only a few wealthy or solid-career husbands who engaged in infidelity that led to divorce, and their cases can also be explained by the framework of identity verification. In the case of Younghwa (female, fifteen years of marriage, age forty, three daughters [Kim, Song, et al. 2005]), her dentist husband had several extramarital affairs. My husband had slept with several women who worked at the bars he frequented. Affairs generally take place before they even realize what they are doing, but it seems that men engage in affairs out of their hero psychology. When I got to know of his infidelity, I did not intend to divorce him. I thought men’s infidelity was a possible lapse on their part, and I expected he would regret it someday. But a woman who gave birth to his child went to see my first daughter. That was when I made up my mind to divorce. My husband had spent practically all his earnings on his own and contributed little to the family finances. Thinking back, throughout the period of our marriage, I was just too generous in letting him be free.

Younghwa was a doctor of traditional East Asian medicine and earned enough money to maintain a middle-class lifestyle for her family of five. After a short period of marital conflict, she suggested divorce, and he consented. Popular books instruct middle-class wives in how to entice their estranged husbands away from their presumably younger lovers, implying that many middle-class wives of unfaithful men intend to stay married, as Younghwa initially did. There is nothing in Younghwa’s narrative to indicate whether her husband’s affair partners, who worked at bars, were sex workers. However, this may be the right place to mention that several observers argue

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that sex businesses are thriving in Korea.6 Yet very little is known about the industry’s impact on marital dissolution or its implications for the family institution in general. According to Busan Family Court case 127 (nine years of marriage, both age thirty-four, one child), the two spouses met in college, and both became primary-school teachers. The wife was outgoing and liked to gather with friends and family members. She planned various events, coordinated schedules, and expected her husband to be there, but he did not like crowds. If he was late coming home from work, she called him every hour. The wife wanted her husband to “live exactly as she wanted and planned,” according to the court ruling. He became frustrated and irritated with her. Then he began an affair with one of the temporary teachers at his school. They divorced through the wife’s petition. The spouses’ equal occupational status could have provided the wife with the contradictory role perception that she was achieving more than expected, which may have manifested in her controlling of her husband, which in turn might have threatened his masculinity. In both cases in this section, the husbands had solid careers and did not struggle with provider anxiety, yet their wives were equally or more successful. The men’s infidelity may have been a way for them to confirm their masculine identity.

wom en ’s in fiDeliT y a s a n ex pR ession of con TR a DicToRy Role peRcepTions In more than a dozen cases in the sample, the wife’s infidelity was the critical issue. Rulings broadly show two groups of wives involved in extramarital affairs: working women who earn relatively good incomes as either paid employees or self-employed workers and well-off housewives who possess wealth either inherited from their parents or transferred from their husbands. Both groups hold self-serving role perceptions and presume that their resources allow them to act on their desires, even at the risk of marital disruption. Housewives may also experience selfdoubt, as discussed in chapter 4. In some cases, family problems such as in-law conflicts or a husband’s violence have triggered the wives’ extramarital affairs, which may have been their way of passively resisting the

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patriarchal dominance of their husband and parents-in-law. These wives could have initiated divorce if they had a reason to leave their marriage, but instead they violated the marital contract and were divorced by their husbands. Infidelity among Working Women: It was the husbands who filed for these divorces, and the rulings attributed the responsibility for the marital breakdown either solely to the wife or to both spouses equally. The three wives described in this section were semiprofessionals who held solid, career-track positions. In the case of Seoul Family Court case 130 (eight years of marriage, two children), the couple met each other when both were twenty years old and dated for several years before they married. The wife was a nurse; the husband worked at a public corporation. The husband’s parents took care of their two children during the week. The husband contributed little to childcare or housework, and he expected his wife to follow his mother’s directions in all areas of family life, including the wife’s own work and birth arrangements, including how long she would take maternity leave and where she would give birth. This caused frequent conflicts between the spouses and between the mother- and daughter-in-law. After the birth of her second child, the wife showed symptoms of depression. Then she began an affair with a married man and got caught in a motel with him. The husband filed for divorce and was awarded alimony. According to the records of Seoul Family Court case 19 (six years of marriage, two children), both spouses worked at local government offices. Consistently, from early in their marriage, the husband criticized his wife for not devoting enough time to housework and for not being able to save money, which caused frequent quarrels. At some point, he began managing the household finances but lost a fair amount in stock investments. After that incident, they each managed their own earnings separately. When their landlord requested an increase in their long-term lease (jonse) deposit, a fight erupted regarding who would pay for it, and he hit her. After this event, she stayed with her parents for a while before she returned home. She began meeting a male college friend; they talked over the phone, saw each other, and exchanged text messages. Her husband’s suspicion of her heightened the tension between them; he was also physically abusive. She filed for divorce, and he counter-filed. The

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court ruled that both spouses were equally responsible for their marital dissolution and granted the divorce. In Busan Family Court case 132 (two years of marriage, husband’s age thirty-one, wife’s age twenty-nine, one child), the wife, a franchiseshop supervisor, filed for divorce, accusing her husband of illegally examining the closed-circuit TV security tapes from her shop, interrogating her repeatedly late into the night after coming home drunk, yelling at her, and hitting her, injuring her leg. He counter-filed in response. A court investigator found several pieces of evidence proving her extramarital affairs. For example, she had lied to her husband that she was participating in a mandatory overnight training workshop when in fact she had spent the night at a motel with another man. She also sometimes falsely claimed the need to stay late at work, returning home in the early hours of the morning. The investigators’ evidence included text messages she exchanged with a boyfriend, for example, “my honeymoon is not that exciting, so I’d better have some fun with you.” The investigator’s findings revealed her uncaring attitude toward her marriage. The court denied her petition but granted a divorce to him, awarding him a small amount of alimony. Infidelity among Wealthy Housewives: Wealthy housewives may hold a contradictory self-identity as holders of wealth on the one hand but also as persons lagging behind other women who are economically or socially active on the other. The wives in this section demonstrate multiple layers of role perceptions, described under the categories of “self-serving wives who are financially independent” and “depressed housewives” in chapter 4. The two cases that follow are from interviews with husbands whose divorces were by mutual consent but who blamed their wives’ infidelity for the breakdown of their marriages. A third case, Busan Family Court case 98 (eighteen years of marriage, husband’s age forty-three, wife’s age forty-one, two children), was very similar. In the case of Juhyuk (male, nine years of marriage, age thirtyfive, one son), his wife was the only daughter of a successful businessman, and she inherited substantial wealth early in their marriage. Both spouses had high-school educations. Given the wealth of her parents, it was rather unusual that the wife did not go to college. Juhyuk was working as a manager at a nightclub when he first met his wife, who was

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two years older. She was dancing with another man when Juhyuk first noticed her. He approached her, they began to see each other, and they cohabited before they married. She did not know anything about homemaking, did not know how to cook any dishes, how to fold blankets, or how to clean up the house. When we had the first child, she did not know how to bathe him. She is the type of person who only does things she feels like doing. She always took a crowd of friends when she went out and often paid for the food or entertainment for all of them.

Juhyuk had a series of unsuccessful jobs, from the management of the nightclub to a rental business to real-estate investment, and he lost some money that his father-in-law had loaned him. Some years into the marriage, my wife told me she was having an affair, but I thought it was a joke and let it pass. Then one day she asked for a divorce. I was mad and felt betrayed, but there was nothing I could do. Yes, we quarreled and I protested, but things were beyond my control. For example, one late night when she was drunk she talked with the man over the phone in the very living room where I was. Feeling powerless, somehow I signed the divorce-registration form.

Juhyuk thought that he had not married the right person. According to him, her upbringing encouraged her carefree lifestyle and character. Yet being carefree is not a reasonable explanation for why a person would call her lover in front of her husband; such behavior suggests her perception that their role structure, in which she was the more powerful partner, justified her breaching of the marital contract. The case of Sunwoo (male, fourteen years of marriage, age fortythree, two sons) offers another example of a judicial divorce. Sunwoo ran a small business, and he put many company assets under his wife’s name, mainly for business purposes (a safeguard in case of business failure and a way to reduce taxes) but also partly to please her. His wife, however, according to him, “betrayed” him and took what she owned with the divorce. Sunwoo and his wife met each other through a seon, an arranged meeting by a matchmaker. He had already tried more than thirty seon and had decided even before he met her that this would be

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the last time. He was a graduate of a junior college specializing in fisheries and was running a fishery-related small business with a few boats that he owned. In the early years of marriage, everything was fine, and he was happy. The problem started as I earned more money in my business. I bought a car for her, bought a home in her name, and gave her a personal allowance. Then she became dismissive of family life. She would drink and come home late more frequently. At the time, my wife was complaining to me, saying things like she was lonely and that I did not show love for her, but I did not quite grasp what she was really saying. Then she began playing cards with her friends, and then she was having an affair. My first son was in fourth grade and my second son had just entered primary school, but she was rarely home. So I pressed her, but she would never admit to having an affair. I filed a lawsuit accusing her of adultery.

As discussed earlier, an adultery suit requires filing for divorce. Sunwoo filed the lawsuit not only to punish his wife but also to regain some or most of “his” assets (including the home and the car) that she was not willing to yield. At the time, Korean family law was more observant of individual ownership of properties based on legal title than it is now, despite the fact that these assets were acquired during the marriage through “his” work. He tried and failed to prove her adultery, which requires direct evidence of a sexual relationship, unlike the clause that defines infidelity as grounds for divorce. For the two years of court proceedings, he paid little attention to his business, and it collapsed soon after the final ruling, which awarded very little of “his” assets to him.

“sev eR ely u n j usT TR eaTm en T ”: in sea Rch of m a sc u lin e iDen TiT y While an extramarital affair is an issue of trust between spouses, violence undermines basic human dignity and can be punishable by law, not to mention serving as legal grounds for divorce. Yet some level of physical or mental abuse by the husband, such as hitting, yelling, and throwing things, is common in the sampled cases. In several rulings,

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young wives also exercised “situational couple violence.” Violence is stipulated as grounds for divorce in Article 840, Clause 3, “severely unjust treatment by spouse or by parent of spouse,” and Clause 4, “severely unjust treatment of parent by spouse.” The expression “severely” suggests that “somewhat” unjust treatment may not result in divorce unless it is combined with other reasons. Rulings show that, for both male and female perpetrators, drinking often preceded violence. Korea’s claim to the world’s highest per capita alcohol consumption7 may be one factor behind the high prevalence of violence. Also, for husbands, extramarital affairs, and for wives, in-law conflicts, often coincide with spouse assault. Violent Husbands with Discordant Social Statuses: In some cases of violence, the husbands experienced status dissonances in their life circumstances. They had access to some level of material resources but were frustrated by their social position. For example, in Kim, Won, et al.’s (2005) case 7, the husband, whose education ended after middle school, was frustrated by his economic dependence on his parents. In Kim, Won, et al.’s (2005) case 8, the husband, a high-school graduate, was frustrated by his own social incompetence and his child’s disability. Despite their relatively affluent material conditions, the self-identity of these two poorly educated husbands was threatened by their shaky social status, which led them to drinking and then to projecting their frustrations onto their wives with violence. Seoul Family Court case 35 (eight years of marriage, two children) shares some similarities with the two cases just described, although this husband was better educated. He had studied interior design in Italy and was working at a design company at the time of his marriage. When that company closed, he started his own business with funds from his parents. However, the business failed. His parents helped him start new businesses several times, but in the midst of the country’s economic recession, they never went well. However, his marital problems were not about financial issues. His wife complained that he discussed everything with his mother and nothing with her. His economic dependence had probably strengthened the bond between the mother and son, and his wife’s demand for independence from his parents would have hurt his vulnerable identity as a grown man. He poured out his frustrations on his wife, making declarations such as “Nothing works out because of

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you.” He also hit her on several occasions. She filed for divorce, which was granted on the grounds of Clauses 3 and 6. Violent Husbands with Provider Anxiety: As discussed in chapter 3, blurred boundaries between business and household finances let husbands running small businesses be particularly attentive to and “controlling” of their wives’ household management. Also, lower-middle-class or working-class husbands, who feel the pressure of bringing in a living wage, may project their anxiety as providers onto their wives. The details are not shown, but in Busan Family Court case 66 (three years of marriage, husband’s age twenty-eight, wife’s age twenty-five, one child), where the husband was a factory worker and the wife worked as a nurse assistant at a traditional East Asian medicine clinic, the couple had several episodes of violent exchanges, and the husband tried to dominate the wife and end her family’s meddling. In Seoul Family Court case 9 (eighteen years of marriage), the husband, who managed a small business, was controlling and abusive of his wife, a full-time housewife. She had to ask him for any money she needed, and every time she asked, he would yell at her and sometimes hit her. One time he squeezed her neck and beat her so badly that the injury required four weeks of medical treatment. On that occasion, he wrote a statement of repentance promising that he would never do it again. Then he beat her again, leaving her bleeding from her injuries. The wife endured the abuse for the sake of the children, but after fifteen years of marriage she left home, with the children. After the separation, the husband let her run an inn that he owned. But whenever he came to check her management of the inn, he would insist that her business expenses were too high and hit her. One night when her husband appeared at the inn, she fled in fear. In his anger, he smashed up her car. After this incident, she finally filed for divorce. The court granted it, based on Clauses 3 and 6 of Article 840. Given all his abuse, it is surprising that he let her run the inn, and it reflects his sense of responsibility as a provider. “Situational Couple Violence” by Husbands against Resource-Rich Wives: While some well-educated husbands opt to leave marriage when their self-identity is threatened, as described in chapter 3, other husbands in similar circumstances are physically abusive of their wives. However, in the cases that follow, the court granted divorce based only

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on Clause 6 of Article 840, suggesting that the level of violence was not so severe as to warrant Clause 3. In other words, in these cases the courts see wife assault as one of the confounding factors that contribute to marital disruption. In Seoul Family Court case 74 (nine years of marriage, ages in the early forties, one child), both the wife (the plaintiff) and the husband (the defendant) had enrolled in graduate schools in the United States soon after their marriage. The wife had grown up in an affluent family and still received financial support from her parents. She did not hesitate to rent a high-priced house, buy an expensive car, and eat out frequently, all despite her husband’s repeated objections. The husband would pick fights with her over her personal behavior, her cooking, her way of talking, and other issues, causing her much stress. They quarreled often, punctuated by him yelling at and even hitting her. At one point, she moved to another city with their child to enroll in another graduate program, against his objections. Eventually he followed her. After some years, he received his doctoral degree and returned to Korea; she remained in the United States to continue her graduate program. She then brought up the issue of divorce. He objected, but she insisted and filed for divorce in Korea. The court granted a divorce based on Clause 6 of Article 840. The court ruled that the two contributed equally to the marital breakdown, faulting her behavior just as it did the husband’s violence. Another well-educated couple’s marital dissolution is recorded in Seoul Family Court case 67 (nine years of marriage, one child). They were medical doctors, and the two quarreled a great deal from the beginning of their marriage. She was a quiet person, but he was quick-tempered and easily upset. He frequently drank and came home late. He often yelled at her and occasionally hit her. On some of these occasions, she went to her parents’ home and stayed there. After repeated violent incidents, she filed for divorce, and her petition was granted based on Clause 6. The court initially awarded custody of the child to the husband; however, because the husband and his mother did not allow the child to see the mother, against the terms of the ruling, the court shifted custody to the mother. In Busan Family Court case 20 (seven years of marriage, two children), the husband was a professional martial artist who competed in

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international competitions but otherwise did not have a steady job. The wife worked intermittently as a home tutor for children. The husband complained that she came home late from work and did not take care of the family (for example, not serving a proper dinner). There was also an incident in which he beat her, causing injuries that required three weeks of treatment. On the night of that incident, hearing what had happened, the wife’s younger sister and mother and the husband’s elder sister came to the couple’s home, and the sisters-in-law got into a fight. Apparently in defending his own sister, the husband hit his wife’s younger sister in front of her mother. After this event, the spouses separated for several months, then reunited, and finally she left home, leaving the two children behind with him and his mother. The wife filed for divorce, and the court granted it based on Clause 6 of Article 840, attributing responsibility equally to the two spouses, him for being physically abusive and her for leaving home without her children. In court, he insisted that the blows were minor private incidents and again blamed his wife for not carrying out her duties as a housewife.

wom en ’s v eRBa l a Buse a n D R eacTi v e aTTacks Wives can also be violent toward their spouses. In most such cases, the wives are reacting to their violent husbands, but some initiate the violence. In the first case presented here, the court downplayed the wife’s assault as opposed to the husband’s and granted a divorce to the wife. In the second and third cases, both the wife and the husband were abusive, but the husband won a divorce over the wife’s objection. As in the case of husbands’ violence, the court granted these divorces based on Clause 6 either alone or in combination with Clause 3 or Clause 4. In Busan Family Court case 117 (two years of marriage, one child), the wife became pregnant a few months after the couple first met, and they married right after the birth. The husband was a skilled blue-collar laborer, with a job that occasionally required overnight work. She worked part time every so often. He sometimes drank during his offwork hours. They quarreled frequently, with the husband yelling at her and sometimes hitting her. The wife would retaliate by scratching him

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with her fingernails, breaking his cell phone, shattering the windows, tearing down the curtains, or ripping his clothes. She kept a knife under the bed in case he assaulted her. She also picked a fight with her motherin-law, who had asked her to go to church with her. After a number of these incidents, the wife filed for divorce. The court sided with her and granted it based on Clauses 3 and 6 of Article 840, stating, “even though the plaintiff [wife] assaulted the defendant [husband], her power would never match his, and his violence is more heavily responsible for the marital breakdown.” In Supreme Court case 4, the two spouses fought all the time, both using violence against the other. Any minor issue escalated into a big dispute. When the husband (the plaintiff) withdrew twenty million won (about twenty thousand US dollars) from their savings account without consulting his wife, she called him repeatedly at his workplace to talk about it. She also called her mother-in-law, yelling, “Discipline your son better.” When a fight erupted before a family trip abroad, he hit her, and she countered by wielding a broomstick. In another fight that happened on a Sunday when he had to go to work, he hit her, and she threw a frying pan at him. Then she called her mother-in-law and yelled, “You crazy Sunja [the mother-in-law’s name], take the corpse of your son.” Later she visited her mother-in-law to apologize, but she also said that she would hire gangsters to beat up her husband if he kept hitting her. The two often fought when the husband came home late after drinking. After the fights, she often demanded that he kneel before her to apologize or just leave home. She cut up his clothing and photographs and would bang her head against the wall when drunk. On some occasions, she went to his workplace to continue fighting. She once left their child at his workplace. After each incident, she acted as if nothing had happened. The husband filed for divorce, but the lower court did not grant it, reasoning that he was as or more responsible than his wife for the marital conflict. The Supreme Court then granted a divorce to the husband, citing Clause 6 of Article 840. Because the sample is limited to divorced couples, this study cannot tell whether successful middle-class men, who should not need to defend their masculinity, are less prone to engage in violence and infidelity. It may be the case that they are just as prone, perhaps to reward themselves

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for their success, but that middle-class wives wait until later in the family life cycle before they file for divorce. Identity control theorists have found that people who perceive themselves as overachievers are less likely than people who perceive themselves as underachievers to engage in compensatory acts,8 and one previous study shows that this pattern holds for the case of male infidelity.9 Socially and legally unsanctioned conduct such as domestic violence or infidelity may be the outcome of individual dispositions related to personality or upbringing, but the similarities across the cases in their family circumstances, in particular regarding the role arrangement between the spouses, suggest a common theme. The identity hypothesis of this book postulates that such conduct is adopted as a way to restore self-identity among men frustrated with their role performance as providers and among women who hold contradictory role perceptions.

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Implications Doing Gender

N

arratives from interviews and court rulings suggest that marital relationships break down while married persons are doing gender in their everyday lives. Husbands and wives routinely engage in behaviors intended to neutralize the perceived gaps between their identity standards based on gender-role norms and their actual role performance. In other words, the norms of specialized gender roles constitute the self-identity of married persons, and their perceived underfulfillment (or occasional overfulfillment) of their identity standards leads them to trigger marital problems. This thesis, emphasizing the effects of rigid gender-role norms, departs radically from the dominant perspectives in the divorce literature. The pervasive assumption in the literature is that liberal or individualistic attitudes inspire married persons to leave their (unhappy) marriages for better lives. The oddity of this book’s thesis, however, dissolves if we accept a conceptual distinction between the process of relationship breakdown and the decision to leave or act of leaving a marriage. Rigid norms fuel relationship breakdown (as this book argues), whereas liberal norms facilitate leaving an unhappy marriage (as the literature says). To help disaggregate the two processes in empirical data, we can assume two hypothetical types of societies. In the first, the stigma of divorce is strong, relationship breakdown is not a sufficient reason for divorce, and a costand-benefit assessment is crucial in leaving or staying in a marriage. In such a society, only the rich and/or liberal may leave their (unhappy) marriages. The other type of society attaches minimal stigma to divorce and is affluent enough that people can expect to survive financially if

116

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they end their marriage; here, relationship breakdown will most likely result in divorce. Where a society of any given culture and time is located along the continuum stretching between these two types is an empirical question to be answered with data, but during the past few decades Korea has rapidly transformed from being more like the former to being more like the latter, as is perhaps the case in many other societies as well. Such rapid societal shifts make it imperative to theorize the process of relationship breakdown, even though the private nature of marital relationships makes it challenging to articulate broad generalizations. The need for a new theory of relationship breakdown is further indicated by recent research on marital dissolution that notes the relevance of gender-role norms or gender dynamics, which cannot be readily explained by the existing literature.1 Some academics postulate that the causes of divorce have changed historically from economic or institutional factors to personal ones as the social cost of divorce has declined.2 When the social cost of divorce is high, divorce related to lifestyle or personal incompatibility is suppressed, but as the cost of divorce becomes lower, many marriages are dissolved for diverse personal reasons (“expressive divorce”). The postulation of such historical transitions corresponds to the thesis of this study to the extent that they both assume a change over time in major causes of divorce from factors affecting the decision to leave a marriage to factors related to marital quality. An important discrepancy, however, lies in the key mechanism by which marital quality becomes so low that it leads to marital dissolution. In this book, the mechanism is identity verification, which is based on norms for gendered roles, whereas in the historical-transition literature it is personal or idiosyncratic preferences, which cannot be generalized beyond being broadly labeled as self-actualization. Another discrepancy comes from the finding of this study that processes of identity verification are deeply intertwined with individuals’ economic standing or earnings, which is counter to the premise of the historical-transition literature, which states that economic factors are not important in marital dissolution in affluent contemporary societies. Yet it should also be noted that, in the mechanism of identity verification, the immediate causes of marital failure are not economic but interactional: interpersonal conflict and negative emotions.

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The social context of Korea is particularly relevant for demonstrating how the structural conditions of the polarizing labor market lead to the breakdown of marriages through the mechanism of identity verification in everyday marital interactions. This context can be described by the term “compressed modernity”; it is a product of rapid and extensive social changes over several decades, and it is characterized by a disjuncture between (contemporary) realities and (traditional) ideals in many aspects of daily practices. For example, the two genders have achieved equality in rates of college enrollment and certain professional occupations, yet familial roles are still very much gendered. Moreover, even though many couples are dual earners, breadwinning is still considered primarily the husband’s duty. Such disjointed social transformations leave many people, particularly married men with high-school or less education, in traps of unmet expectations. One prominent Korean family scholar observed that the male household head’s authority (or power over the family members) used to be unconditional but has now become conditional on his income-earning ability.3 Some macro-level social trends also support the thesis that identity verification (as opposed to individualism) is the key force of divorce; for example, high-school or less educated men were increasingly more likely to divorce than were their college-educated counterparts through the 1990s, but the attitudes of the two educational groups adapted to these behavioral trends only after some years, by the early 2010s; further, most cohabiters are previously married, meaning that cohabitation is a by-product of increasing marital dissolution (see chapter 2). Scholars of other East Asian societies, including Taiwan, Japan, and China, which have experienced similarly rapid socioeconomic transformations, also note that changes to family structures have taken place in the absence of a rise in individualism.4

sum m a Ry a n D i mplicaTions The data of this study are from in-depth interviews with divorced persons and court rulings on divorce cases, and the sample is restricted to divorces that occurred over the period from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s, during the childbearing and childrearing stages of the family

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life cycle (that is, excluding divorces in and after late middle age) and in first marriages. The study found that several types of marital dynamics lead to divorce, as summarized here. These types show variations and occur in various combinations in specific circumstances (chapters 3 through 6), but they all share a common underlying mechanism of relationship breakdown. This means that new data may produce some additional types. Piercing through all of the types is the thesis of this book: that people with rigid gender-role expectations trigger marital breakdown by engaging in acts of identity verification in their daily lives. Gender-role norms from the cultural legacy of the patrilineal and patriarchal family system are internalized in individuals; the contemporary social environment, emphasizing personal achievement, also shapes people’s perceptions of their roles. Plus, the consumerism and conspicuous consumption displayed by the global middle class, which affect material desires among lower-middle-class or working-class couples as well, have consequences for what people expect and perceive as success. The several types of marital dynamics are distinguished mainly by how one spouse triggers the initial marital problems. The first type is shown among couples in which the young working-class husbands have no more than a high-school education. These husbands suffer from chronic underemployment; the only jobs they can find require heavy physical labor with low pay and little job security, and many of them leave the labor market semivoluntarily, engaging in various forms of hypermasculine conduct in their spare time. Small-business owners also face economic struggles. In these cases, the boundaries between business and household finances are often permeable, and men anxious about maintaining their small businesses may rely on patriarchal power to control their wives’ financial management and often their entire lifestyle. Yet burnt-out working-class men with steady jobs display similar patterns of provider anxiety and also transmit their anxiety to their wives by trying to control them. Economic shocks can shake men’s ability to be the family providers and threaten their self-identity. Some middle-class husbands engage in irresponsible financial transactions, most typically obtaining large credit-card advances or private loans with high interest rates. They do so mainly to maintain the family’s consumption at a level commensurate with their unrealistic expectations. Such husbands’ wish for good luck (daebak) can be a time bomb for families.

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Many men with access to some level of resources display defensive masculinity. Most typically, these are young, childless, college-educated husbands who experienced a short or long period of unemployment and who project their role frustration onto their income-earning wives, blaming the wives for personal traits such as not being tidy, lacking culture or taste, being unpredictable, and so on. On the other hand, unmet expectations of hypergamy are the source of marital problems for some wives. Other wives with stable employment or access to wealth may view themselves as overachieving if their role reference is housewives, holding self-serving perceptions that they deserve more than what their marriages offer them. Meanwhile, housewives may feel depressed if their role reference is working women, a group increasingly visible in the society. These contradictory role perceptions lead women to attempt to reduce the gaps they perceive by engaging in identity-restoring conduct that may violate the marital contract. Another group of women in the sample define the marital relationship on their own terms and demand their husbands accept lifestyles or marital arrangements that run up against the husbands’ normative expectations. Possibly peculiar to Korea or to East Asian Confucian societies is that many divorces are related to in-law conflicts. Some parents of married couples hold gender-role expectations on behalf of their children and challenge their children-in-law to meet these expectations. Typically, middle-class parents who have invested heavily in their children’s education and professional training attempt to ensure maximum returns on behalf of their children by meddling in their married life. Lastly, it is noteworthy that culpable spouses (as ruled by the court or observed by the author) display one or more types of the marital dynamics summarized here. Common culpable behaviors such as infidelity and violence are among the compensatory acts engaged in by those who perceive gaps between their ideal and actual selves.5 Thus, except for a small number of exceptions in which serious health issues, religious conflicts, or criminal acts were the problems, in the vast majority of the cases in the sample it is apparent that the rigid norms about gender roles that married people have internalized are the key origins of marital breakdown.6 It is worth noting again that the qualitative data on which the findings and conclusions of this book

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are based are not randomly selected and that the book does not intend to exhaustively explain all divorces but instead to identify a key mechanism of relationship breakdown for a significant portion of the divorces occurring in contemporary Korea and possibly in other societies as well. The marital dynamics summarized thus far describe marriages that were dissolved. Would marital relationships be different among couples who remain together? Logically speaking, based on the thesis of identity verification, undivorced married persons may differ from divorced persons in any of three aspects: (1) their role performance may fit their gender-role norms (for example, the husband has stable employment and high enough earnings); (2) their role expectations may be flexible enough to maintain a stable self-identity in times of poor role performance; and (3) even if they engage in acts of identity verification, they may choose acts that are not harmful to marital relationships (as suggested by psychologists predicting marital dissolution).7 Given the reality that systems of social stratification are beyond the reach of any public intervention, the main policy implications of this study are related to the second aspect: that marital stability depends on individuals’ ability to flexibly adapt their roles to changing structural environments. Greater marital stability seems more possible if men are willing to give up their identity as patriarchs and are flexible enough to accommodate any roles viable in and outside the family and if women are willing to share responsibilities as well as privileges as income earners and as homemakers. In the end, positive self-identity is crucial to marital stability. In the context of a weak economy, spouses who remain together and pool their resources will achieve an economy of scale and hence be better off. Evidence has shown that, at least in financial terms, life after a divorce is usually worse than before the divorce. But it is only in the absence of the psychological turmoil related to identity verification that adverse life circumstances will not necessarily lead to marital instability. A few conjectures are due regarding the applicability of the thesis of identity verification to societies beside Korea. It will be widely relevant to the extent that inflexible gender-role norms are combined with polarized labor-market situations, which is most likely in economies experiencing extensive transformations. Such situations threaten the self-identity of many struggling workers and thus disrupt their marriages. Over

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time, married men and women may adapt to the labor market’s reality by adopting more flexible gender-role ideologies, for example, accepting a sole-earning or higher-earning wife and a homemaking husband as options (as some middle-class couples do in the United States).8 In the meantime, lingering rigid norms will disrupt families in globalizing economies. Economists find that husbands’ unemployment increases divorce, unless his job displacement is related to disability or plant closings, suggesting that if he can rationalize his unemployment, his selfidentity is not threatened and the marriage can be sustained despite economic losses.9 Any type of rigid norms, including some feminists’ categorical declaration that women do not need men, will not help families, whereas flexible norms may enhance marital harmony. This formulation of identity verification as the mechanism of relationship breakdown implies that marital dissolution is an outcome of doing gender in everyday life. Gender-role expectations are internalized in married persons as their identity standards and are embedded in daily practices. As such, recent findings on the “gendered nature of divorce” seem to reflect the importance of gendered self-identity in relationship breakdown. Numerous studies have reported differential associations between husbands’ and wives’ employment/earnings and divorce, yet the literature has had a hard time theorizing these associations. If we rather simplistically assume that a husband’s provider anxiety is in an inverse relationship with his earnings (other things being equal), then the thesis of identity verification can readily make sense of the almost universal effects of husbands’ earnings on marriage stability, to the extent that these effects are backed by the presence of norms for male-provider roles. Moreover, the identity verification thesis provides a good explanation for the widening class divide, where divorce rates are increasingly higher in lower socioeconomic strata.10 The thesis illustrates the mechanism through which the macro social context of rising inequality in neoliberal economies (unequal access to higher education, high-wage jobs, and/or inherited wealth; polarizing labor-market conditions; and consequent rising disparities in income and wealth)11 may threaten married persons’ self-identity and hence marital stability. On the other hand, the association between the wife’s employment/earnings and divorce has been described as “controversial.”12 The

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parallel increases in women’s socioeconomic status and the incidence of divorce during and after industrialization have led scholars to attribute amplified marital instability to women’s economic independence (and liberalizing attitudes).13 Yet individual-level data have been inconsistent and inconclusive. The thesis of this book argues that this inconsistency is related to transitional norms for women’s roles, which result in individual wives ascribing personal meanings to their roles and engaging in consequent contradictory acts of identity verification. While fulfilling one role, women may feel inadequate because of another role that they are failing to fulfill. In addition, the thesis of this book sheds light on the psychological theory of divorce. In his 1994 book, the psychologist John Gottman identified four patterns of spousal interactions that predict divorce: contempt/disgust, defensiveness, criticism of partners’ personality, and stonewalling or emotional withdrawal from interaction. Indeed, the couples in the sample of the current study often displayed these negative interactional patterns. However, this book’s thesis identifies them as symptoms of the structural dynamics related to gender-role expectations. To conclude, this book refutes the notion that married persons choose to leave their marriages for greater gains. The data show that divorce is simply the end result of relationship deterioration. According to the literature, a majority of divorces are initiated by women in Korea and in other societies,14 yet women are rarely (financially) better off after divorce. Thus, the increased incidence of divorce in Korea does not necessarily signify a shift in the foundations of the family toward gender egalitarianism. At the same time, attributing divorce to irresponsible or individualistic attitudes (among the less educated) is misguided, and the media-based antithesis that “poverty pushes couples apart”15 misses the point as well. What destroys marriages is not poverty per se but (1) rigid expectations about male-provider roles and threats to men’s identity and (2) women’s contradictory perceptions about their own role performance. To navigate volatile socioeconomic environments, greater responsiveness or flexibility in attitudes toward gender roles is crucial to maintain positive and constructive self-identities, and hence marital relationships, as Gerson (2009, 10) argues. But how can a society develop

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flexible attitudes? In particular, how is it possible to relax the ideal of the male as the provider and patriarchal authority—and how should men negotiate their masculine identities? For some years, many TV programs in Korea, including talk shows and documentary-style reality shows, have reflected the complexity of family relationships in the context of cultural and economic transformations and questioned the traditional norms.16 Greater visibility of diverse lifestyles should generally promote flexible role ideals, although it remains to be seen how effectively media and popular discourses on gender roles will weaken, rather than reinforce, rigid expectations of gendered roles. Nevertheless, the point remains: the question of how to change gender norms is not psychological but sociological.

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a ppe nDi x a

Amendments to the Family Laws

T

he two books of Korean Civil Law governing the family, collectively referred to as the Kin-Inheritance Law (Chinjok Sangsokbeop), or Kin Law, have been repeatedly revised during the past half-century, since the Civil Law was first promulgated in 1958, a decade after the establishment of the independent Republic of Korea. The foundational principles of gender hierarchy, familism,1 and generational hierarchy have been gradually replaced by the ideals of egalitarian gender and generational relations and individualism.2 Progress toward gender equality was relatively slow during the 1960s and 1970s, when the country was preoccupied with overcoming poverty. A certain level of economic growth and political democratization was achieved by the 1980s, and the family law began to adopt gender-egalitarian principles from the early 1990s. In the mid-2000s, the most basic principle of the patriarchal family laws, the hoju system, was discarded. Interestingly, the rules concerning divorce procedures had a somewhat different amendment history. Contrary to the principles of familism in the early Kin Law, the procedure of divorce was never more than loosely regulated. Thus, the procedural laws have remained unchanged for several decades, apart from minor additions. Below, I summarize the trajectories of amendments to the divorce procedures and other parts of the Kin Law. Amended family laws may affect divorce trends, but the pathways to divorce are diverse and likely to be mediated by many other factors in society. The purpose of this appendix is to present the legal context as a background. Any causal inferences are beyond the scope of this research, given the potential complexity of the linkages. For example, the crude divorce rate rapidly increased in the 1990s. If the 1991 amendment were the sole or major reason for this trend, the rate would have increased 125

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noticeably for a short period after its enactment and then remained stable or risen slowly, but this is not what happened. Another complexity in potential associations between the laws (or legal amendments) and divorce comes from the judicial system of Korea, where judges’ discretion can play a significant role in rulings. For example, between 1998 and 2012, the share of the family property that the courts awarded the wife in judicial divorces increased substantially (while the law remained unchanged).3 This notable increase in women’s allotment may be partly attributable to a rise in their direct contribution to wealth accumulation through increased labor-force participation, but it is also the result of shifting court rulings that value women’s household work more highly than before. In short, the Korean laws follow the customs of the society, and legal amendments may be the consequences as well as the causes of changes in social practices, including divorce trends.

TighTening Th e pRoceDu R a l l aw of Di voRce The two legal paths to divorce have not changed since 1958. Divorce has always been simple and easy if the two spouses consent. They submit a registration form, and then the divorce is done. If the two spouses disagree on the divorce or on the terms of their separation, then either spouse may file for divorce in court. In court divorce litigation, faultbased rules are applied, although no-fault divorce is also possible. Based on evidence presented by the two parties and supplemented by the court investigators, and according to the legal code, the case is adjudicated by either a sole judge or a group of three judges. The court will grant a divorce so long as the plaintiff’s responsibility for the marital breakdown is not greater than the defendant’s. Rulings include whether a divorce is granted and, if so, how the family property is to be divided; whether any party should pay alimony (as compensation for psychological damage done to the other spouse); and custody and parental rights regarding any children. Article 840 of the Kin Law codifies the six grounds for judicial divorce; the first five are faults: (1) spousal infidelity, (2) severely unjust treatment of an individual by the spouse or the spouse’s parents, (3) severely unjust

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treatment of one’s parents by the spouse, (4) malicious desertion, and (5) missing for more than three years. Clause 6, “other serious reasons making it difficult to continue marriage,” allows the court to permit divorce without designating the culpable party. If the marriage causes “unendurable pain” or if the relationship breakdown is so severe that the marriage is “irreparable,” divorce may be granted. In many rulings, however, some of the first five clauses are combined with Clause 6.4 It may be surprising that the Kin Law, based as it was on Confucian ethics, has readily allowed divorce as long as the two spouses consented, whereas Western fault-based divorce laws based on Christian traditions rarely shifted to no-fault rules before the 1970s.5 Legal scholars argue that the flexibility in the Korean law was in fact an extension of patriarchal control in the traditional family, because the husband or his parents could expel a wife at whim.6 Initially, the requirement for proof of consent was practically irrelevant, because it meant only that the two individuals’ name stamps had to appear on the form. Thus, a husband could easily fill out the divorce-registration form alone. Scholars also explain that it was possible to enact such sweeping no-fault divorce rules without much social resistance because the incidence of divorce was extremely low anyway, given its strong stigma. In traditional Confucian ethics, divorce was a deep disgrace for honorable families, and such mores remained strong in the late 1950s. The ease of divorce procedures became a public social question only in the late 1990s, when the divorce rate rose to the world’s highest level within a short period of time. Only then did the courts take steps to tighten the regulations, forcing would-be divorcers to reevaluate their family circumstances and carefully assess possible consequences for their children’s well-being. Ironically, in 2008, at the same time the new democratic gender-egalitarian family laws were enacted, the procedural divorce law adopted its strongest regulations ever for consent-based divorce. The initial procedures allowed unlimited freedom to divorce, without any measures for protecting the weaker spouse or the children, so long as the two marriage partners consented. Consent to divorce was akin to giving up all rights to spousal property or children. When an experimental program requiring a waiting period was first introduced in the Seoul Family Court in 2006, couples could either wait one week or receive one-time marriage/divorce counseling by court-appointed

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counselors. Major amendments took effect in 2008, requiring couples divorcing based on mutual consent to have a short informational session with a court-appointed counselor, where they heard about the possible (negative) consequences for their children and themselves; wait for three months if they had underage offspring or one month if they did not; and submit a statement specifying their childrearing arrangements and plan for property division. If the partners did not reach agreement, the court determined those matters. The court can also mandate professional counseling at the couple’s expense. On the other hand, there is an emerging trend in judicial divorces to allow exceptions to fault-based rules, a move toward acknowledging the virtual collapse of marriage as an institution. While it is still not common, recent court rulings increasingly grant divorces based only on Clause 6 of Article 840 (“other significant reasons making it difficult to continue the marriage”), rather than combining it with the other, faultbased clauses. In these cases, the two spouses are considered equally responsible for the dissolution of the marriage. The fault-based rules are intended to protect an innocent spouse who does not want the divorce, but the court rulings increasingly recognize that it is not advantageous to legally bind together a couple whose relationship has collapsed.

Th e paTR i a Rch a lism a n D fa m ilism of Th e fiRsT fa m ily l aws With the procedural ease of divorce, the amendments to the Kin-Inheritance Laws regulating the rights and obligations of family members, including the rules governing property inheritance and parental rights, may have had significant influences on individuals’ decisions about divorce. After some debate, the lawmakers and scholars involved in legislating the first Kin-Inheritance Law of the Republic of Korea ended up embracing the principles of customary law over the modern constitutional ideals of individual human rights and equality.7 The law enacted in January 1960 endorsed the principles of hierarchical relationships between genders and generations, with the rationale of maintaining the family and social stability. The hierarchical principles are evident in three areas of the law, which are briefly explained here: (1) the definition

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of family and kin membership, (2) the patriarch’s control over family members, and (3) property ownership and inheritance rules. The definition of family and kin membership: The family laws adopted the hoju system, in which everyone in the nation belonged to a legally defined “family” unit, or hojeok, headed by a patriarch called a hoju, regardless of their coresidence status. Although patriarchs’ power over the lives of their family members gradually weakened over time, the use of the hoju system in the family laws symbolized patriarchal principles and the ideology of familism until it was completely abolished in 2008, after the ruling of the Constitutional Court in 2005. A hoju was, in principle, a living male of the oldest generation within an extended family. His family included all the members attached to the lineage, including his wife, his sons (and their families), and any unmarried daughters (the membership status of married daughters has changed from outsider to insider over time). Job applicants were routinely required to submit their hojeok record, and employers considered persons with any irregularity (such as divorced parents) in their records to be less qualified, if not altogether unqualified. Under the patrilineal membership rules, the boundary of legal kin members, called chinjok, who possessed inheritance rights, was broader for relatives in the paternal line (up to third cousins) than in the maternal line (up to first cousins only). The patriarch’s control over family members: Although it became increasingly symbolic, the family law codified a patriarch’s control over his family members in diverse areas, such as determining their residence, approving marriage for members under certain ages, and deciding on primary parental rights and obligations for their underage children. But the law also stated that the patriarch and his family members had mutual obligations to support one another. Property ownership and inheritance rules: In an apparent mixture of the patriarchal principles of the family law and the individual property rights guaranteed by the Korean Constitution, the Kin Law adopted the rules of individual property ownership for married couples; that is, the titleholder had sole ownership of property. In a social context where a vast majority of families titled their properties under the name of the husband, who was the household head, the main breadwinner, and often the patriarch, this principle of individual ownership had the effect of negating the wife’s contribution to family wealth accumulation.

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Similarly, if ownership was not obvious, the property was regarded as belonging to the husband. The law codified fixed shares of inheritance based on the members’ positions within the family by gender and generation. With the influence of the Constitution, daughters were given the right to inherit parental property against the conventions of the time, but their defined shares were smaller than those of their brothers. The oldest son inherited 1.5 times the share of his younger brothers, on the grounds of his future role as patriarch. The share of unmarried and married daughters was onehalf and one-quarter, respectively, of a younger son’s share. As such, the first son’s share was six times the share of a married daughter, who had technically left her family to join her husband’s. Most critically, related to the principles of the male-lineage system, the amount of a wife’s inheritance was only as much as the share of her second or younger son and two-thirds of the share of her first son, yet a husband was the sole beneficiary when his wife died first. Such legally defined shares fit with an old saying in Korea: A woman depends on her father when young, on her husband while married, and on her sons in old age. In this social context, with its web of patrilineal family units, divorce for women meant losing any place in society, as they would no longer belong to any family, while men would lose only their reputation. The 2005 ruling by the Constitutional Court virtually abolished these patrilineal and patriarchal principles, but their legacy still lingers, especially among older people and men of higher socioeconomic status.

lega l R ev isions BefoR e 1990: sTR i v ing foR gen DeR equa liT y The first revision of the family law occurred in 1977; it limited the family recorded in the hojeok from the extended family (where all adult male sons of a hoju [the patriarch] and their family members are considered members) to the stem family (where only the first son, or any one son, and his family are considered members). The revised law confirmed the centuries-old Korean tradition of primogeniture, giving the first son the primary obligation to support his parents and the right to inherit their wealth.

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Although total gender equality still lagged, the 1977 amendment strengthened individuals’ rights. Before 1977, the youngest age at which one could marry without parental consent was twenty-seven for men and twenty-three for women, but this was amended to twenty for both (matching the legal age of adulthood). The youngest age eligible for marriage with parental consent remained unaltered, at eighteen for men and sixteen for women. Also, under the revised law, underage persons were considered legal adults once they married. In addition, several minor amendments improved the position of women. For instance, mothers were given equal parental rights and obligations, although fathers still had ultimate authority when the parents did not agree on childrearing arrangements. An unmarried daughter’s share of the parental inheritance was now equal to that of her male siblings’ share, although the allotment for a married daughter was still only one-quarter of that of the other siblings. The wife’s share of inheritance was increased to be equal to the first son’s portion. Unnamed property was now considered co-owned by the spouses instead of belonging only to the husband. Another interesting amendment ensured that family members’ inheritance rights (yuryubun-kwon) could not be repudiated by a will. Family members who were legally eligible for inheritance could now make court claims for their shares as specified in the Inheritance Law, even if someone else was designated as the beneficiary in the will. These amendments were to protect economically dependent family members after the death of the benefactor. Behind such rights are the values of familism and mutual obligation among family members in times of need. All in all, the 1977 and other minor amendments during the 1980s only slightly weakened the ideologies of familism and gender hierarchy.

gen DeR ega liTa R i a n pR inciples in Th e 1991 R ev ision a nD TR a nsiTions in wom en ’s soci a l sTaT us The next set of revisions to the Inheritance Law was enacted more than a decade later, in 1991. Important social and political transformations took place during the 1980s, including the rapid expansion of college education and political democratization, as manifested for example in

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the June 29 Declaration in 1987. The 1991 revision radically democratized family relationships, especially in regard to gender, and diminished the hoju system. Much of the remaining rights and obligations of the patriarch were removed. A family member who was in the position of inheriting the status of patriarch, most often the first son, was now allowed to refuse his inheritance and start his own family instead. This change implied that the family lineage was not predetermined by biological relationships but instead followed the members’ wishes. Accordingly, the first son’s larger allotment of property inheritance was also removed. Gender equality was pursued on three fronts: kin membership, the patriarch’s control over members, and property rights. For example, the boundary of kin membership was expanded to include third cousins on the maternal side, matching the paternal side. Regarding parental rights, when parents did not agree on childrearing arrangements, the court, not the father, now made the final decision during the marriage or after the divorce. The most notable amendments in 1991 were related to improved women’s property rights. First, the revised laws granted a divorcing spouse the right (referred as jaesan bunhal cheonggukwon) to claim partial ownership of the wealth accumulated during the marriage and registered under the other spouse’s name. This may have facilitated divorce, but evidence does not support this speculation. Nevertheless, housewives now had access to their husbands’ assets to help maintain their standard of living if they were to divorce. In the case of a husband’s death, the wife’s inheritance share was still only 1.5 times a child’s share, but daughters’ shares changed in 1991. Now, all children of the deceased—son or daughter, first born or later born, married or unmarried—receive an equal share of the inheritance. The 1991 revision also included a clause allowing an extra share of inheritance for anyone who had contributed to the accumulation of the deceased person’s wealth, emphasizing a family member’s actual performance over his or her ascribed position in the family. In parallel with these amendments, the 1990s witnessed important advances for Korean women on several fronts, mainly as an outcome of the expansion of women’s college education during the previous decade. For example, in 1998, the Korea Military Academy (for the army) for the first time admitted female students, and the Air Force Academy and

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Naval Academy followed suit over the next two years.8 In the national exams selecting middle-rank government officials, women made remarkable progress: among those who passed the exams for administrative, diplomatic, and judicial officials, the percentages of females expanded from an average of less than 5 to approximately 20 during the 1990s, and the increase continued for another decade to reach almost 50 percent by 2010.9

Th e 2005 consTiT u Tiona l cou RT Ru ling a Bolishing Th e Hoj u sysTem Despite continuous revisions, the symbolic principles of hierarchical gender and generational relationships remained alive in family law until radically different laws were enacted in 2008. While the amendments promoting gender equality thus far had been fragmented efforts, the 2005 ruling by the Constitutional Court of Korea was truly holistic: it declared that the hoju system, the basic organizing principle of the KinInheritance Law, was not constitutional, violating individual freedom and gender equality. The petitions leading to the ruling were related to two circumstances: (1) a wife wanted to terminate her membership in her husband’s hojeok to become an independent person, and (2) a divorced mother wanted to move her children’s family registration from her exhusband’s family to one headed by herself. The government registration office had rejected these requests on the grounds of the hoju system. By the early 2000s, the divorce rate had risen sharply in Korea, and various legal issues had been raised related to childrearing arrangements and property division. The gaps between the Civil Laws and everyday family lives were obvious, and households headed by single mothers or remarried parents faced serious inconveniences. Thus, debates between two deeply divided camps, those favoring and those opposing the abolishment of the hoju-based family system, were taking place everywhere, inside and outside the courts. After repeated public hearings, the Constitutional Court ruled in February 2005 that the hoju system violated the Constitution. It also ruled that the social foundation for this patrilineal family system had already collapsed in Korea. One month later, in March 2005, Congress passed an act to mandate the Ministry of Justice

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to develop a new family-registration system by the beginning of 2008. Congress passed the new family-registration system in April 2007, and it was enacted on January 1, 2008, as planned. The government registration office now keeps all the records of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces as before but no longer traces the family as a unit. The new “family-relations record,” a copy of which is issued upon individual request, is now a personal document; that is, it is different for each individual, showing his or her parents, current spouse, and children with no information on siblings or past marital history. Although children typically take their father’s last name, they can now be given their mother’s or their stepfather’s last name. Also, a ban on marriage between partners with the same last name and the same hometown origin was revoked. The two parents now share parental rights and obligations equally. Several other changes contributed to greater gender equality, but, overall, the court was expected to play a larger role than before to ensure children’s best interests. The effects of these democratizing Civil Laws on the incidence of divorce have been minimal: there has been no noticeable change in the crude divorce rate since their passage.

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a ppe nDi x B

Qualitative Data and Methodology

T

his research began with an open-ended inquiry about why marriages are dissolved in Korea: What has been going on with marriage to cause such a dramatic rise, which then subsided slightly? Much of the literature explaining divorce adopts quantitative methodologies using data from large-scale surveys and tests alternative hypotheses on risk factors, including the theories of individualism and exchanges. While these literatures inspired some of my initial questions, such as how women negotiate their relationships with their husbands and under what circumstances women (and men) decide to leave their marriages, this study departs from their methodological tradition by adopting qualitative methods using data from in-depth interviews and court rulings.

Th e DiffeR ences BeT w een R isk facToRs, R ea sons, a nD causes Risk Factors versus Causes: The quantitative research predicting divorce focuses on risk factors, the factors positively or negatively associated with the probability of divorce. The dominant theories explain which of these factors help or hinder marital dissolution but tend to overlook the process of how marital relationships break down beforehand. Despite their variety, including demographic, socioeconomic, and attitudinal characteristics of the couples, the known risk factors fall short of shedding light on the mechanisms of why marriages are dissolved. Although investigating diverse risk factors allows for broad speculation, there has been little effort to piece together the findings into a coherent framework. With qualitative data, this book attempts to address the causes of relationship breakdown and explain their mechanisms. 135

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Reasons for Divorce from Divorce-Registration Forms: Another approach to explaining the divorce incidence explores the “reasons” for divorce as stated by divorcing or divorced people.1 These subjective reasons may reflect the causes more closely than risk factors do. However, when asked about reasons or motives, divorcing people are likely to refer to the most visible conflicts or the final, culminating incidents that occurred toward the end of the dissolution process, which can be misleading about underlying causes. In particular, the way the divorce-registration form inquires about the reason for the divorce is not calculated to produce reliable scientific data. The form contains a question that asks the couples to choose one major reason for their divorce from a fixed set of choices, with no space to provide any further explanation. Until 1999, the choices were “disharmony between spouses,” “economic problems,” “health problems,” and “other.” In 2000, the category of “disharmony between spouses,” which had comprised an overwhelming majority of the answers, was further differentiated into four choices: “spousal infidelity,” “mental or physical abuse,” “family disharmony,” and “personality differences.” The remaining three categories stayed the same. Since then, “personality differences” comprises about half of all answers, which is not surprising considering that it can refer to any type of marital conflict and is the only choice that does not assign blame. Thus, both the earlier and revised questions lack a theoretical basis. Furthermore, it is not clear how the selection is made by the divorcing couples. For judicial divorces, the grounds for divorce specified in the ruling determine the reason marked on the form, although the two sets of reasons do not correspond exactly. For divorces by mutual consent, a couple’s answer is arbitrary as no rationale is required; moreover, the two departing spouses may perceive the reason differently. Most of all, however, none of these brief phrases can reflect the full depth of a complex situation. It is likely that some combination of these reasons operates at different stages of the dissolution of the marriage. Despite the shortcomings of this data source, I performed some analysis crosstabulating the selected reasons with the couple’s educational attainment (high school or less, college) and age (20–29, 30–39, 40–49). The results introduced here are considered in later chapters for the purpose of triangulation, as are the findings from previous studies on risk factors.

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137

The divorce-registration data show that the patterns of association remained fairly stable between 2000 and 2010. Couples reporting the reasons of “spousal infidelity” and “mental and physical abuse,” each comprising about 10 percent of all divorce records, have similar characteristics; they are generally older and less educated, and their divorces are mostly judicial. “Family disharmony” shows a flattened U-shape relationship with age (of either the husband or the wife). It may be that younger couples with college education have problems with meddling parents-in-law, whereas older couples with high-school or less education may face problems related to the need to care for or support elderly parents. The percentage of divorces due to “family disharmony” declined from about 20 percent to about 10 percent over the ten-year period. This decline was countered by a comparable increase in “personality differences.” It is possible that these two complementary trends are related to the rapid increase in college education among the total pool of divorced people. As in-law conflicts are likely to be combined with disputes between the spouses in marriages that break down, family conflicts involving the parents may increasingly be attributed to (or perceived or simply reported as) “personality differences” rather than “family disharmony” by educated couples. The category of “economic problems” also shows a bipolar pattern, being chosen most often by young, less educated couples and by middle-aged, college-educated couples. This finding may be related to the underemployment of the young and less educated and to the early retirement of the more educated.

sou Rces of DaTa This study uses two types of data, in-depth interviews and court rulings. All the data come from divorced persons; this study is not intended to compare marriages that will and will not be dissolved but to describe the relationship trajectories preceding divorce. In the family law, divorce may occur either through mutual consent or, when spouses do not agree either to a divorce per se or to the terms of divorce, through litigation. Approximately 80 to 85 percent of divorces occurring each year have been based on mutual consent,2 suggesting that by the time one spouse

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Appendix B

wishes to leave the marriage, the other spouse feels the same. The remaining 15 to 20 percent of divorces are the outcome of a litigation process, but even among these, according to the author’s analysis, much of the contention is about the terms of the divorce, such as alimony claims, property division, or child custody, not about the divorce per se. Given the fault-based rules of divorce litigation, as described in what follows, court rulings provide valuable data on the causes of divorce. In-depth Interviews: Narratives of divorced individuals were obtained from two different sources. First, I conducted thirty face-toface interviews (with sixteen women and fourteen men). Interview subjects were recruited through personal networks; my friends, relatives, and workplace colleagues who were asked to introduce eligible subjects identified them through their own personal networks, confirmed their willingness to participate, and gave me their contact information. Then I contacted them and made arrangements for an interview in a secluded office space or at a quiet café. It is noteworthy that some of the female interviewees were contacted through two local government offices that hired divorced young mothers, either part or full time on temporary contracts, as part of the welfare program at that time. These women were not working at the time of their divorce and needed public assistance in getting jobs or in preparing for employment, but they were not necessarily from low-income families before the divorce. Each interview took about ninety minutes, and the entire interview was recorded with the consent of the interviewee for later transcription. The interviews were carried out between 2006 and 2013. Interview questions were based on a roughly structured questionnaire, asking what had happened in their marriages and what led to their divorces, but the conversations were flexible and informal. Ideally, the ex-spouses of the subjects would also have been interviewed, but after some attempts, I gave up the idea. Some interviewees simply did not have the contact information, others expressed hostility to the idea, and still others were afraid to violate the privacy of their ex-partners. Supplementing the primary interview data are fifteen secondary interviews gathered from two excellent volumes of case studies, written by several sociologists and published in Korea in 2005. Both Kim, Song, et al. (2005) and Kim, Won, et al. (2005) took a descriptive approach in delivering and synthesizing their interviewees’ accounts and provided

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139

detailed life histories. I ended up reinterpreting these published interviews with a very different perspective from those of the original volumes. The chapters of Kim, Song, et al. (2005) deal with different stages of the family life cycle. Each chapter focuses on a few case studies, and the interviews contain extremely rich data, with lengthy narratives about the interviewees’ lives before and after divorce. Seven cases met the three criteria listed above. The subjects of this volume consisted mostly of middle-class persons with college or more education, providing a balance with the other volume, which deals primarily with lower-income families. Kim, Won, et al. (2005) is a research monograph prepared for the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs with two objectives: exploring the circumstances of divorce and assessing divorced families’ utilization of and need for public programs. Their interview subjects were recruited from public counseling centers, which served mostly lowincome families. Of the volume’s ten cases, eight met this study’s three criteria. The narratives in this volume were generally shorter than those in Kim, Song, et al. (2005). Table B-1 presents pseudonym, gender, marital duration in years, age at divorce, number of children, and (estimated) educational attainment of all forty-five interviewees. Pseudonyms are used to protect the individuals’ privacy, but the names and case numbers of the interviewees from the two volumes remain the same. Of the forty-five interviewees, twenty-seven were women and eighteen were men. Most of the interviewees had one or more children at the time of divorce. A majority of the male interviewees had at least a junior-college education, reflecting the author’s limited social network; educational attainment among the female interviewees was more evenly distributed. Court Rulings: The court rulings are from publicly accessible webpages of the Korean Supreme Court Library and four district-level family courts. I accessed the webpages repeatedly between 2012 and 2013.3 The Supreme Court Library webpage publicly posts the full records of rulings that are considered exemplary legal precedents, selected from all the courts in the country. As of mid-2013, the number of cases yielded by a search of this webpage with the keyword ihon (divorce) was only five to ten annually between 1993 and 2012. Meanwhile, I reviewed all the cases posted on the webpages of five family courts located in cities across the country, which similarly post exemplary cases: Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Daejun, and Kwangju (but Kwangju provided no eligible case).

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TaBle B-1. Pseudonym Chapter 3 Jihae Miyon Younghee Hyunju Case 4 Case 5 Myungho Yuna Sunhee Suhyun Case 10 Kyung-a Sungjin Taesuk (Minjun) (Jungsook*) Chapter 4 Jihoon Chanho Case 1 (Yongho) Kibum Case 2 Haejung* Hyunmi Yujin Dongcheol Soojin* Chapter 5 Hyunkyung* Haesun Case 9 Jihwan* Taewu Jaejun*

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Characteristics of Interviewees at the Time of Divorce Gender

Marital duration

Age at divorce

No. of children

Education

f f f f f f m f f f f f m m m f

8 4 6 8 5 7 10 5 18 16 20 4 4 15 6 20

33 28 30 34 25 30 42 29 44 39 49 30 33 41 36 46

2 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 0 0 0 2

HS HS HS HS HS HS Coll HS Coll HS/Coll JC JC/Coll Coll Coll Coll Coll

m m m m m m f f f m f

10 10 12 7 17 12 7 6 9 11 5

37 34 39 31 47 45 35 31 37 40 32

2 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 3 0

HS Coll HS JC Coll JC Coll HS HS Coll Coll

f f f m m m

1 1 15 8 2 1

33 28 37 38 29 31

0 0 2 0 0 0

Coll JC/Coll Coll Coll Coll Coll

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Appendix B

Ta B le B-1. Pseudonym Chapter 6 Jungim Sojung Misun Yongja Younghwa* Juhyuk Sunwoo Case 7 Case 8 (Changsun) (Youngsoo) (Boram)

141

(Cont.) Gender

Marital duration

Age at divorce

No. of children

Education

f f f f f m m f f m m f

12 14 13 16 15 9 14 17 11 25 3 4

35 41 40 42 40 35 43 35 41 48 40 39

2 2 2 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 2 2

JC HS HS Middle Coll HS JC Middle HS HS Coll HS

Names marked with * are from Kim, Song, et al. (2005); numbered cases are from Kim, Won, et al. (2005). All other names are from the author’s interviews. If the spouse’s educational attainment is known and different from the interviewee’s, it appears to the right of a slash. Names are listed in the order of appearance in the text. Names in parentheses are not cited in the text.

The Seoul Family Court celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2013, but the others were only established (that is, separated from their respective district courts) after 2010 in anticipation of a larger case volume following the enactment of the revolutionary new family law in 2008, and their rulings are therefore recent ones. Apparently, the judges of the respective courts select the exemplary rulings to be posted, and the postings are updated periodically. By mid-2013, approximately 330 rulings from these five family courts combined had been posted. About half of the rulings were related to divorce, with the rest dealing with other family issues, such as de facto marriage, change of last name, inheritance, stepfamily, adoption, and so forth. Of the cases related to divorce, whether from the Supreme Court Library or local family courts, many dealt entirely with disputes over postdivorce arrangements, for example, property division, child custody, or child support. The divorces had been ruled on in earlier proceedings or were by mutual consent,

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Appendix B

and the current court rulings contained limited information about the divorce process. There were also many cases in which divorce was denied by the court or where the case did not meet this study’s criteria (that is, the first marriage of partners who were under 50 at the time of a divorce between the mid-1990s and early 2010s). The remaining eightyseven rulings partially or fully described the marital dynamics leading to divorce, providing data for this book. In the text, court cases are labeled by the name of the court and a random case number assigned by the author. The personal information available in the rulings varies greatly across the courts and the cases; when available, information including marital duration in years, age of the husband or wife at the time of divorce, number of children, and the spouse who initiated the divorce appears in parentheses next to the case name in the discussion of the ruling. A notable advantage of the court rulings is their balanced information on both spouses, although these descriptions are not directly from the couples and not as personal and rich as the interview narratives. Court rulings provide glimpses into the entire sequence of marital dynamics, often including verbatim exchanges between the spouses and detailed descriptions of the spouses’ acts. The fault-based divorcelitigation rules in Korea require the court to lay out the entire chronicle of relevant events occurring up to the legal action, often with the help of court investigators. Based on these records and the codified grounds for divorce in the law, the court first adjudicates which partner is the primary culprit and grants a divorce if the plaintiff’s fault is no heavier than that of the defendant. It is not unusual for the divorce to be granted in response not to the original plaintiff’s filing but to the defendant’s counterfiling during the litigation process, which suggests that who filed for divorce is not very informative of what happened in the relationship.4 All the interviews, published volumes, and court rulings were in Korean, and I translated the transcripts into English. Table B-2 presents summary statistics from the sample of 132 cases. Of eighty-seven court rulings, forty-eight were filed by the wife, thirty-eight by the husband, and one by both spouses. Most of the divorces in the sample took place after 2000. Marital duration was relatively evenly distributed in both interviews and court rulings. Using the classification of marital dynamics I developed through the analytical procedure described in

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Appendix B

143

what follows, each case was identified by its primary type of marital dynamics. They were then grouped into four broad categories, as presented in the table, although many cases also showed traits of more than one type. Cases in which the husband’s behavior triggered the conflict are the topic of chapter 3; cases in which it was the wife’s behavior are covered in chapter 4. The cases discussed in chapter 5 are grouped as inlaw issues. “Other” includes only a small number of cases and refers to couples whose problems were other than those suggested by the thesis of identity verification, such as severe mental or physical health problems, criminal acts, or religious differences. These cases are excluded from the discussion. The numbers in parenthesis refer to cases where either infidelity or violence was conspicuous, as discussed in chapter 6. Understandably, violence and infidelity were referred to more frequently in court rulings than by interviewees, for each category of marital dynamics and for the entire sample. Limitations and Strengths of the Qualitative Data: For researchers familiar with data from nationally representative samples, the qualitative data of this study would have four major shortcomings. First, the sample is limited to divorced people and does not include couples who remained in their marriages. This means that the analysis lacks a comparison group; it tells us nothing about whether the marital dynamics observed in the sample also hold in intact marriages, in which case the causes of marital dissolution may lie elsewhere. Second, interviews were conducted with only one spouse of the divorced couples. Almost certainly, the stories of their ex-spouses would be different, as the fact of the divorce suggests they could not compromise or accept their differences. Third, similarly, statements presented in courts by the plaintiffs and/or defendants may reflect distorted realities, tailored in some ways to win the case. Lastly, it may be undesirable to use secondary data from interviews conducted by other researchers, and the number of interviews conducted by the author may not be large enough to provide comprehensive data. While these evaluations are valid, the strengths of the data may surpass the shortcomings. As discussed earlier, findings from survey data represent average patterns and show risk factors; that is, they tell which subgroups are more or less likely to divorce, but they hardly reveal the underlying dynamics behind marital breakups. Conjectures regarding

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TaBle B-2.

Selected Characteristics of the Sample Cases

Spouse that filed for divorce Wife Husband Both (mutual consent) Year of divorce 1993–1999 2000–2004 2005–2009 2010–2013 Marital duration (in years) 0–4 5–9 10–14 15–20 Source of rulings Supreme Court Library Seoul Family Court Busan, Daegu, or Daejun Family Court Type of marital dynamics Husband triggers conflict Underemployed Burnt-out husbands Small business Economic shock/Jobless Financial risk Defensive masculinity Wife triggers conflict Failed hypergamy Self-serving perception Depressed housewife Insistence on own terms In-law issues Other (health, religion, etc.) Total

Interview

Court ruling

Total

1 1 43

48 38 1

49 39 44

15 21 7 2

12 9 19 47

27 30 27 49

9 14 11 11

29 18 17 23

38 42 28 34

23 31 33

6 1 (2) 2 (1) 1 (3) 4 3 (1)

1 3 (7) 4 (10) 3 (6) 3 11 (4)

3 3 (2) 2 2 6 3 45

5 6 (5) 0 7 0 (2) 10 87

7 13 17 13 7 19 8 16 2 9 8 13 132

Note: Numbers in parentheses refer to cases in which violence or infidelity was conspicuous.

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Appendix B

145

how risk factors and underlying causes of divorce might be related largely depend on the imagination of the researchers. Theories should help make sense of such relationships, but theorizing survey data is not always straightforward; the data will lead us either to confirm or reject our theories, but if we reject them, the data do not always suggest an alternative. This is where, despite all its limitations, qualitative data can make a unique contribution—providing new insights into the connections between the known risk factors and marital dissolution, that is, the underlying dynamics of marital relationships resulting in divorce. For social scientists and policy makers, understanding the underlying causes beyond the risk factors is crucial for considering social implications. The four major weaknesses of the data may, in any case, be irrelevant for the purposes of this book. First, the intention of the book is to explore failing marital dynamics, not to make deterministic predictions. As such, while describing the processes leading to divorce, we can leave open which parts of these processes are most or least critical in the failure of the marriages (or if there is an external factor that can overwhelm the entire process of marriage breakdown and protect the marriage, although this is highly unlikely). Second, regarding a possible bias from interviewing only one spouse, the issue of the subjectivity of interviewee narratives would remain even if both spouses were interviewed, and this issue is not unique to divorce research. To grasp meanings beyond what interviewees say (or even mean to say) is the task of qualitative researchers. Likewise, the interpretations of court rulings encompass the meaning of the entire trajectories of marital events. Further, statements and documents presented in the courts are checked by the court investigators for their truth; the family courts in Korea employ full-time investigators for that purpose. Lastly, related to the size and composition of the sample, the use of three different sources strengthens the data. The primary data sample of thirty interviewees may not be large enough to encompass the entire range of marital dynamics but is nonetheless enough to suggest the key nature of marital problems leading to dissolution. The use of secondary data is widespread in social science research, and the secondary interviews are helpful in augmenting the quantity and diversity of interviewee narratives. The court rulings supplement the interview

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Appendix B

data with their detailed descriptions of relationship trajectories, drawn from both sides’ viewpoints. In all, the qualitative data of this study are rich enough to illuminate the mechanisms of how marital relationships break down, to help clarify the connections between the observed risk factors and marital dissolution, and, in particular, to illustrate how gender matters in this process.

qua liTaTi v e m eThoDology While quantitative methods emphasize regularities (or general patterns) and averages in the associations between variables, they are less helpful in elucidating the underlying dynamics behind the associations. A qualitative approach is advantageous for peering into divorcing spouses’ perceptions and motivations, which may be buried under the observed regularities, and hence for acquiring deeper insights. Data collection began years ago without assuming any particular theoretical model. Inductive reasoning was the main tool used in the process of deriving a framework, but after an outline emerged, deductive reasoning was also effective, as the model could be applied to cases that were not initially easy to understand. Eventually, I formulated a framework that is applicable to most of the divorces in the interview and judicial-case samples. Besides relying on inductive and deductive logical reasoning, which Stinchcombe (1968) and other sociologists have long advocated, I adopted two basic methodological guidelines to minimize bias in drawing conclusions from the qualitative data. First, the derived propositions should not contradict the confirmed observations on risk factors. Thus, the literature reporting quantitative research on divorce risk factors furnished inspiration in drawing conclusions based on the sampled cases. Crossvalidation between quantitative findings and qualitative insights should strengthen the validity of the reasoning. Two notable examples of quantitative findings that served as parameters for this study are the class divide in divorce incidence and the gendered patterns of associations between education/employment and divorce (see chapter 2). The other methodological guideline was to make the selection of case subjects as random as possible. As is usual in qualitative research, the samples were not obtained by random sampling. My efforts focused on not adding any

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Appendix B

147

more bias than was inevitable. For example, the sample avoided subjects involved in divorce clubs or support groups, in case they had formed collective opinions about divorce through their participation in such social networks after their divorces, which could bias their memories. Grounded Theory Method: Starting with the open-ended research questions, the original research design was more descriptive than theoretical. However, as data collection proceeded and the analysis and interpretation continued, it became apparent that a new framework was needed to explain the underlying causes of divorce. In retrospect, the process of developing theoretical propositions and drawing conclusions can be characterized as the constructivist grounded theory method, which refers to developing a theoretical model on the basis of an initial set of data and then continuing to refine its propositions as additional data are obtained. Related types of reasoning discussed in the literature on qualitative methods include analytic induction, constant comparison, and repeatedly verifying and modifying the propositions.5 The analysis focused on discerning the dynamics of marital relationships that end in divorce by attending carefully to the whole trajectory of each relationship. I therefore analyzed the individual narratives case by case rather than aggregating them using software. This holistic approach makes sense because both the interviewee narratives and court rulings, while they describe incidents that occurred and reflect the perceptions of the spouses, do not themselves present a coherent explanation for why the marriages ended. Based on the progression of marital dynamics shown in the entire observation period, I identified several typical patterns of marital dynamics resulting in divorce, none alone of which would suggest an independent proposition, although each elucidated specific situations in which a marriage may break down. Each pattern is characterized by distinctive circumstances in which a spouse, more often a husband but sometimes a wife, triggers relationship trouble. When the patterns were combined, an underlying structure of relationship breakdown emerged. Based on this structure, I developed a thesis. I found the underlying structure of relationship breakdown to fit well with the symbolic interactionist theory referred to as identity control theory, as discussed in chapter 1. The four empirical chapters present how the thesis of identity verification is relevant to the typical patterns of marital dynamics that lead to marital dissolution.

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not e S

ch a pTeR 1: w h y Do m a R R i ages BR ea k Dow n? 1. Giddens 2000; Hackstaff 1999; Lesthaeghe 1995. 2. The crude divorce rate refers to the number of divorces per 1,000 people living in a country in a given year, which is a rather “crude” measure in the sense that the denominator includes unmarried people, including children. Nevertheless, it is the measure of divorce most widely used by researchers and policy makers. Similarly, crude marriage rate refers to the number of marriages per 1,000 people living. Total fertility rate is the number of children a woman would have in her lifetime if she embodied the age-specific fertility rates observed in a given year. 3. Y.-J. Lee 2006, 2011. 4. KOSIS 2017. 5. Raymo et al. 2015. 6. B.-I. Chang 1999; S.-Y. Kim 2002, 2005, 2010; refer to appendix A for the trajectory of family law amendments. 7. K.-K. Lee 1975. 8. The seven vices are disrespect for parents-in-law, not bearing a son, adultery, jealousy, serious disease, talkativeness, and theft. Although the ethics code also specified three conditions under which the seven-vice rule could be overridden (when a poor family became wealthier, presumably with the woman’s contribution; after she participated in three years of mourning rituals on the death of a parent-in-law; and if she did not have parents or relatives to return to), divorce at the time meant expelling the wife or daughter-in-law (K.-K. Lee 1975). 9. Such attitudes are more common in Korea than in neighboring East Asian countries, according to Y.-J. Lee (2016); chapter 2 describes the social context of Korea. 149

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Notes to Pages 3–6

10. Brinton, Lee, and Parish 1995; Hwang 2002; Lee, Jang, and Sarkar 2008; Shin 2009. 11. Hays 1996; J.-K. Lee 2003; K.-K. Lee 1998. 12. Coontz 2005; de Graff and Kalmijn 2006; Goode 1970, 1993; Lesthaeghe 1995; Lewis 2001; Park and Raymo 2013; Ruggles 1997; Thornton 2005; Thornton and Young-DeMarco 2001; van de Kaa 2002; Vignoli and Ferro 2009. 13. Gong, Cho, and Koo 2005; Cherlin 2009; Coontz 2005; J.-K. Lee 2003; Hackstaff 1999; Lesthaeghe 2010. 14. Baker and Jacobsen 2007; Becker 1991; England and Farkas 1986; Kalmijn and Poortman 2006; Nye 1978; Oppenheimer 1997; Raymo et al. 2015. 15. Becker 1991; Becker, Landes, and Michael 1977. 16. Kalmijn and Poortman 2006; Sayer et al. 2011. 17. Goode 1993; Lesthaeghe 1995. 18. Lee and Bumpass 2008; Sayer and Bianchi 2000; Sayer et al. 2011; Schoen et al. 2002. 19. An a priori assumption is made regarding the “marital contract,” as follows: people enter marriage with some level of commitment in a customary sense, i.e., with an implicit agreement to several ideas. First, the spouses anticipate that under normal circumstances the marriage will last until death; second, the spouses will be reasonably respectful and maintain a good relationship with each other; and, third, the spouses will share family resources by jointly participating in the production, maintenance, and consumption of them. Hypothetically, if institutional norms about marriage and divorce are weak, people may marry without agreeing to any such contract. For such people, dissolving a marriage would be more like a random act triggered by any contingency; if so, it would defy application of any theoretical framework about relationship breakdown, including the one discussed in this book. 20. Owens, Robinson, and Smith-Lovin 2010; appendix B. 21. The premises of identity control theory have long been developed by such symbolic interactionist theorists as Burke (1991), Burke and Tully (1977), Foote (1951), Stets and Carter (2012), Stryker (1980, 2008), and Stryker and Burke (2000). Burke and Stets (2009) postulate that one’s identity may be defined in three ways, as a person with particular characteristics, as a person belonging to a particular group, and as a person holding a particular role. This book highlights self-identity as defined by the roles one plays.

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Notes to Pages 6–11

151

22. Burr 1971; Goode 1960; Stryker 1968. 23. A group of symbolic interactionist theorists emphasize identity as a set of meanings applied to the self in a social role. In other words, role-identity meanings are internalized by individuals and should remain stable through the feedback loop of daily interactions (Owens, Robinson, and Smith-Lovin 2010). 24. Ridgeway 2011, 133. 25. England 2010; Gerson 2009; Lee, Jang, and Sarkar 2008; Pedulla and Thebaud 2015; Sweeney 2002; Takeuchi and Tsutsui 2016. 26. Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman 2011; Cunningham 2008; England 2010; Sayer et al. 2011. 27. Ciabattari 2001; Sayer et al. 2011; Williams 2000, 2010. 28. In contrast, married persons who perceive themselves to outperform in the expected roles may also engage in behaviors breaching the marital contract in an attempt to reduce the gap, but this type of compensatory action is much less frequently observed in the data. Burke and Stets (2009) found a curvilinear (reverse J-shape) relationship between one’s perceived role performance and one’s engagement in compensatory acts; people whose self-identity is threatened by their poor performance are more likely to engage in compensatory acts to reduce their perception gaps, but those who feel they are overperforming also do so, albeit more mildly. 29. Bittman et al. 2003; Brines 1994; Craig and Mullan 2011; Schneider 2012; Thebaud 2010. 30. Willer et al. 2013. 31. Munsch 2015; Tichenor 2005. 32. Kaufman 2000. 33. Goldscheider, Bernhardt, and Lappegard 2015. 34. Gerson 2009; Goldscheider et al. 2015. 35. Bair 2007; Brown and I-Fen 2012; Kim, Song, et al. 2005; E.-Y. Lee 2008; Y.-J. Lee 2011; Park 2000; Thomas 2012. 36. The term “doing gender” was coined by West and Zimmerman (1987) and has been widely used in the field of family studies, generally to refer to the practice of gender-deviation neutralization. For a review of gender theories that further distinguish between the concepts of “doing gender” and “gender performance,” which is outside the scope of this book, refer to Judith Butler and other contemporary gender scholars.

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Notes to Pages 12–19

ch a pTeR 2: soci a l con TexT 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

Koh 2010; Sakong and Koh 2010; Shin 2009; Shin and Kong 2014. Shin and Kong 2014; Yang 2018. Abelmann 2003; Chang 1997, 2008, 2010. D.-S. Kim and J.-S. Kim 2004; J.-K. Lee 2003; McDonald 2000; Raymo and Iwasawa 2005; Raymo et al. 2015; Tsuya and Bumpass 2004. CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics Report 41-13, 1993; CDC/NSHS, National Vital Statistics; National Institute for Population and Social Security Research, Population Statistics Japan, Table 6 Nuptiality (www.ipss.go.jp). S.-Y. Kim 2002, 2005, 2010, 2014; Korea Legal Aid for Family Relations [KLAFR] 2009. This book focuses on divorce during spouses’ childbearing and childrearing years, as discussed in the previous chapter. Increasing awards of family property to housewives may have facilitated “golden-dusk” or “gray” divorce, i.e., from later middle age on, when family wealth tends to reach higher levels. Over these three decades, the Korean population as a whole was aging swiftly, given the rapid fertility decline of previous decades. To control for the changing age composition over time, the distribution of five-year-interval age groups was standardized based on the 2000 distribution. However, the results for overall employment status and educational differentials in employment status were similar with and without standardization. Education is the most widely used indicator of class position in family research for two reasons. First, unlike income or occupation, which are fluid over time, educational attainment remains permanent once schooling is completed, serving as the best proxy for lifetime occupational status and earnings. Second, subgroup data on family behavior are more readily available in relation to educational attainment than income or occupational status. Despite these general advantages, we still need to be cautious in using education as a class indicator in Korea. School enrollment rates increased so rapidly that changes in the occupational structure of the economy have not kept pace with educational expansion. Koh 2010; Park 2007. Additional analysis showed that the patterns of marital status differentials by educational attainment were similar for men aged 40 to 49 (and men aged 25 to 29) except that they were generally less (more) educated than men in their thirties. As in the earlier analyses, the age distribution was standardized across the four censuses even with only two five-year

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Notes to Pages 19–23

12.

13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

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age categories, but standardization again made minimal difference to the results. Note that the table presents current marital status, and the currently married may include some who were remarried, which means that the percentages of widowed or divorced people in the table will be underestimates of the actual incidences of widowhood and divorce. This bias may be greater for college-educated men, given their higher probability of being in a first marriage than men with less education. However, with the estimated force of marriage (i.e., the ratio of the percentage currently or previously married to the percentage never married) among college-educated men being about twice as large as that among men with middle-school or less education, the gap between middle-school- and college-educated men in the actual probability of divorce should still be considerable. For less educated men, the force of divorce (i.e., the ratio of the percentage divorced to the percentage currently or previously married) is much higher than what is shown in the percentage divorced. Also note that the slightly higher percentage of the divorced among women than among men for each education subgroup in table 1. This reflects gender differences in marriage. Compared to men, women marry younger and hence are married longer, which exposes women to divorce for a longer period. Survey data may provide more direct evidence of transitions in marital status than do censuses; however, reliable data with large enough sample sizes are not available. Meanwhile, in an earlier study, the author linked two data sets, one each from marriage- and from divorce-registration records, to indirectly estimate the divorce propensities among subgroups by cohort and educational background (Y.-J. Lee 2011). The findings confirm that the divorce rates were higher and increased more rapidly among couples with lower education than among those with higher education. It was also found that the widening trend of educational differentials remained fairly consistent over this time period, despite the rise and fall of the crude divorce rate through the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. In addition, when the educational attainment of the two spouses was different, the husband’s educational attainment was a more consistent determinant of divorce than was the wife’s. S.-K. Kim, Chang, et al. 2000; S.-K. Kim, Cho, et al. 2006; S.-K. Kim, Kim, et al. 2012. Comparable data from earlier dates would be helpful, but the survey was not administered in earlier years.

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154

Notes to Pages 24–29

18. For simplicity of presentation, figure 1 shows the results only for respondents with high-school or more education. As discussed, the percentage of adults aged 25 to 49 with middle-school or less education decreased so rapidly that their presence had only a minor influence on the overall statistics by 2010. 19. The National Statistics Office of Korea releases the raw data of the entire body of marriage-registration records each year with personal identifiers removed. Remarriages after widowhood and divorce were combined. Remarriage after widowhood remains at about 1 percent of all marriages and comprised an ever-decreasing proportion of all remarriages, from approximately 18 percent to 7 percent, over the two decades. 20. Cherlin 1978. 21. Y.-J. Lee 2008. 22. The discussion on cohabitation is based on the author’s analysis of data from two sources, the Social Statistics Survey (SSS) conducted in 2006 and 2010 and records of all marriages registered between 1991 and 2010. Some of the analysis is from earlier research (Y.-J. Lee 2008). The SSS is conducted every other year, and each survey gathers data from nationally representative samples of more than 10,000 households. The unit of sampling is the household, and all adult members in the household are survey respondents. In the 2006 and 2010 surveys, the question on marital status included a subquestion: If a respondent said that they “have a spouse,” then they were asked whether the respondent “registered the marriage.” If both partners answered that they have a spouse but neither reported the marriage’s registration, then I classify the couple as cohabiting. If either of the spouses reported that the marriage was registered, then the couple is considered married (with the assumption that the spouse answering “no” to the registration question misinterpreted the question as regarding the act of registering). This section focuses on findings from the 2006 data, but the results for the 2010 survey were very similar. Restricted to couples considering their partners as spouses, this methodology may widely underestimate the prevalence of cohabitation. 23. The estimation of cohabitation from the marriage-registration data will underestimate its prevalence, as the data include only those who eventually married and do not represent cohabiters whose union was dissolved without entering marriage. The registration delay of eighteen months is a rather arbitrary threshold between cohabitation and a simple delay in marriage registration. However, the results of cohabiter characteristics were similar with the assumptions of somewhat shorter (twelve months) or longer (twenty-four months) registration delays.

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Notes to Pages 29–60

155

24. The (downward) bias in the cohabitation estimation caused by excluding those failing to marry may be particularly strong for socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. However, this potential selectivity may not affect the comparisons between pre- and post-first-marriage cohabitation (within each educational level). 25. Goldstein and Kenney 2001; Martin 2006; Raymo et al. 2015.

ch a pTeR 3: m en ’s pRov iDeR a n x ieT y a n D self-iDen TiT y 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Burke and Stets 2009; Stets and Carter 2012; Stryker 1980. Cha and Thebaud 2009; Hansen 2005; Wilkie 1993. Coontz 2010; Schrock and Schwalbe 2009. Throughout the chapters, the information in parentheses next to the case identifier refers to the characteristics of the interviewee or the judicially divorced couple at the time of divorce. Thus, age refers to age at divorce. Hong 2007; S.-H. Kim 2010; C.-I. Lee 2016. Several cases show that evening outings for business purposes can gradually develop into indulgent jaunts and that poor or weak spousal relationships may dissolve when economic downturns affect small businesses and family finances. Some examples (the cases of Jungim, Sojung, and Yongja) are described in chapter 6’s discussion of spousal infidelity, and others (the cases of Yujin and Hyunmi) appear in chapter 4’s discussion of depressed housewives. Yang 2017. S.-H. Kim et al. 2012–2014. S.-K. Kim et al. 2006; Shin 2009. Few of the interviewees described affection between themselves and their spouses, and the word “love” rarely came up, although a few used the word “like.” S.-H. Kim et al. 2012–2014.

ch a pTeR 4: wom en ’s con TR a DicToRy Role peRcepTions 1. Hays 1996; J.-K. Lee 2003. 2. Raymo and Iwasawa 2005.

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Notes to Pages 80–84

3. The show was called Gu Yoja Gu Namja [That woman and that man] and was broadcast on Channel A in Korea.

ch a pTeR 5: Th e exTen DeD fa m ily 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

Choi 1966, 2009; K.-K. Lee 1975, 1998. Han and Yoon 2004; Cho 1997. K.-K. Lee 1975, 1998. Choi 2009; K.-K. Lee 1975, 1998. S.-Y. Kim 2005, 2010. Cho 1998. Lee and Hirata 2001; Lee, Jang, and Sarkar 2008. Y.-J. Lee 2000; Lee, Parish, and Willis 1994; Lillard and Willis 1997. Terms popularized by the media such as “helicopter parent” and “lawnmower parent” portray parents’ active involvement in children’s education, with the former referring to those who hover around their children to oversee their lives and the latter referring to those who remove all potential obstacles from their children’s path (Desai 2014; Rettner 2010). The term “tiger mom” refers specifically to Asian American mothers who are deeply involved in their children’s education, supposedly due to the Confucian cultural norms emphasizing education and parental control over children (Chua 2011). Sociologists including Lareau (2002, 2003) and Hamilton (2012) have explored middle-class parents’ involvement in their children’s education. Lareau 2002; Lareau and Cox 2011. H. Kim 2005. This preference was expressed in various interviews the author conducted with working-class women. This information is from the author’s personal communication with an American-born graduate student who was hired by the Korean government as an English teacher for a primary school in a fishing village. Not being ethnic Korean or able to speak Korean, she was an outside observer. Cho 2005; Lee and Koo 2006. Chung 2015; OECD 2006; Park 2007. Cho 2005; Lareau and Cox 2011. An interesting observation is that these groups do not accept working mothers for the nominal reason that such mothers would not be able to contribute equally to the pooled information (Koo 2010). The notion of

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Notes to Pages 84–100

157

paradoxical perceptions about women’s roles may also be applicable here. Full-time housewives may try to prove their value as productive citizens by defining themselves as educating mothers and differentiating themselves from working mothers. Allowing working mothers in the groups would negate the legitimacy of the full-time educating mothers’ position. 18. Shin 2009. The cost of weddings is an important reason for delayed or forgone marriages in Korea (S.-S. Lee et al. 2005, 176) and is considered a major social issue (S.-H. Kim et al. 2012–2014). 19. Professional matchmaking is a fast-growing industry in Korea. The companies recruit members with middle- or upper-class backgrounds and form exclusive categories, sorting by the level of personal and familial qualifications. Entry fees are on average a few million won (a few thousand US dollars). Adults interested in finding a mate enroll in the program, often encouraged by their parents. 20. In a quantitative study based on longitudinal data from Korea, controlling for adult children’s own socioeconomic status, the socioeconomic status of the husband’s parents was positively associated with the probability of divorce (Y.-J. Lee 2012).

ch a pTeR 6: c u lpa Ble spouses 1. S.-Y. Kim 2002, 2010; Kwon 2010. 2. For example, Dutton (1995) describes the personality constellations of male batterers. 3. The court rulings show that in Korea the only form of spousal support is a lump-sum payment levied on the culpable spouse as compensation for psychological damage done to the other spouse, which this book refers to as alimony. In most cases, alimony is no more than fifty million won (about fifty thousand US dollars). There is no written law or precedent that requires spousal payments for the purpose of maintaining a standard of living similar to that during the marriage, as in the United States. The judges may consider the living conditions of the custodial parents when determining the amount of child support, but there is no explicit rule on record. On the other hand, marital property is divided by the relative contributions of the two spouses to its formation, and the courts have substantially increased the value of housework done by wives (see chapter 2 and appendix A).

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158

Notes to Pages 101–120

4. Moon 2002. 5. South and Lloyd 1995. 6. C.-S. Yim 2013; J.-H. Kim 2013 (Hankooki.com). According to the rough estimates of researchers, about five hundred thousand women (close to 5 percent of women in their twenties and thirties) may participate in commercial sex work, which comprised approximately 4 percent of the GDP in the early 2000s (Byun 2007). Other estimates suggest twice as many female sex workers, considering the various types of businesses in the hyangnak (pleasure) industries, including hostess bars, massage parlors, karaoke bars, etc. (Lee, Lee, and Park 2003). 7. S.-M. Lee 2013 (Donga ilbo). 8. Burke and Stets 2009. 9. Munsch 2015.

ch a pTeR 7: i m plicaTions 1. Cooke 2006; Kalmijn and Poortman 2006; Killewald 2016; Sayer et al. 2011. 2. This reasoning is consistent with the historical transition of marriage from an institution based on economic functions to one based on love or personal gratification (Cherlin 2009; Coontz 2005). 3. K.-K. Lee 1998. 4. Chang 2008; Raymo et al. 2015. 5. The sample also included some high-earning husbands whose infidelity was the cause of divorce, but the number of these cases was very small. According to the thesis of identity verification, they may have perceived themselves as overachievers and engaged in extramarital relationships as a compensatory act. In-depth data on undivorced couples (which are not available for this study) would show whether wives of high-earning husbands wait longer to file for divorce, or whether high-earning husbands are more faithful. 6. Marriage trends in Korea also support the thesis of identity verification. First, the rising average age at first marriage, which reached the thirties for both men and women in the 2000s, may be a by-product of unrelenting gendered role expectations. Men and women may need to invest considerable time in acquiring skills needed for income earning, while women may also have to delay finding spouses. In other words, the rising age at first marriage may signify the persistent or even increasing

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Notes to Pages 121–125

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

159

importance of traditional gender norms, instead of reflecting liberalizing, individualistic, or egalitarian attitudes. Birditt et al. 2010; Gottman 1994. Kantor and Silver-Greenberg 2013; Rosin 2012. Charles and Stephens 2004. Martin 2006; McLanahan and Percheski 2008; Raymo et al. 2015; Schneider 2011. Kim and Kim 2015; J.-S. Lee 2014; Piketty 2014. Rogers 2004; Sayer and Bianchi 2000; Schoen et al. 2002. Whether the rationale lies in natural small-group dynamics (as functionalist theorists assume), in relative advantage in productivity in the work and household spheres (as new home economists assume), or in capitalist exploitation of workers (as Marxists assume), classical theories explaining family changes during the process of industrialization have postulated that the gendered division of labor, between male breadwinning outside the home and female homemaking, stabilizes marriage. Byun et al. 2006; J.-K. Lee 2003. Lowrey 2014. Star Couple Show: Darling (Jagiya); Dongchimi; Couple Clinic: Love and War; That Woman and That Man; Couple Solution; Welcome to In-Law (Sii) World; Great In-Laws; and Mama Mia, among others.

a ppen Di x a 1. The term “familism” refers to the principle of the (patriarchal) extendedfamily system that puts a higher priority on the family as a group than on individual members. For example, it is more important to sustain the family biologically (through the male bloodline), economically (by supporting one another), and socially (by behaving respectably) than it is to allow individuals the freedom to pursue personally focused lifestyles. Familism has long been one of the core ideals in Korea (Chang 2008; S.-K. Kim et al. 2000). 2. The discussion in this appendix relies heavily on the following sources: J.-S. Kim and S.-Y. Kim (Kin-Inheritance Laws, 10th ed., 2012); S.-Y. Kim (A Study on Family Laws, vols. 1–4, 2002, 2005, 2010, 2014); Korea Legal Aid for Family Relations 2009; Proceedings of ISFL Regional Conference 2013 (see articles by Hong; Kim; and Song and Jun).

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Notes to Pages 126–139

3. According to Song and Jun’s (2013) analysis of court rulings, in 1998, 70 percent of wives received 40 percent or less of the family assets, but by 2012, the percentage of wives who received 40 percent or less was reduced by half, to 34 percent. In 1998, 70, 25, and 5 percent of wives received 40 percent or lower, 41 to 50 percent, and 51 percent or higher of family assets, respectively, in Supreme Court cases. In 2012, 34, 44, and 22 percent of wives received the corresponding percentages of the family assets in Seoul Family Court cases. 4. Article 840 refers to the Civil Law, Part 4 Kin, Chapter 6 Marriage, Section 5 Divorce, Article 840. Only in rare circumstances will the court grant a divorce filed by the culpable spouse; for example, when the other party is not willing to continue the marriage yet does not agree to divorce for retaliatory motives. As Kwon (2010) explains, “A divorce will be granted to the party that has the primary responsibility for the breakup of the marriage only when there are special circumstances, i.e., the other party objects to divorce only out of grudging or retaliatory emotions while it is objectively obvious that s/he has no intention to continue the marriage.” 5. Cherlin 2009; S.-Y. Kim 2010, 161. 6. J.-S. Kim and S.-Y. Kim 2012. 7. Yun 2004. 8. The female quota for an entering class was set at 10 percent in all three academies, which was initially meant to secure places for female students, but this soon became a discriminatory rule against them as the applicant-entrance ratios among women far exceeded the ratios among male students. Given the increase in women succeeding in the exams for middle-rank public officials, the ongoing 10 percent female quota in the three military academies seems to reflect a lingering masculine bias in the military. This is especially the case because across the academies, the ratios of female to male students graduating with honorary designations are much higher than their entrance quotas. 9. KOSIS 2012.

a ppen Di x B 1. Hopper 1993, 2001. 2. Y.-J. Lee 2011; Song and Jun 2013. 3. https://library.scourt.go.kr/kor/search/w14_06s.jsp; http://slfamily .scourt.go.kr/dcboard/new/DcNewsListAction.work?gubun=44; http:// bsfamily.scourt.go.kr/dcboard/new/DcNewsListAction.work?gubun=44;

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161

http://dgfamily.scourt.go.kr/dcboard/new/DcNewsListAction.work? gubun=44; http://djfamily.scourt.go.kr/dcboard/new/DcNewsListAction .work?gubun=44. 4. S.-Y. Kim 2005, 2010; Kwon 2010; Song and Jun 2013. 5. Bryant and Charmaz 2014; Charmaz 2006; Glaser and Strauss 1999; Jaccard and Jacoby 2010.

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Sweeney, Megan M. 2002. “Two Decades of Family Change: The Shifting Economic Foundations of Marriage.” American Sociological Review 67:132–147. Takeuchi, Maki, and Junya Tsutsui. 2016. “Combining Egalitarian Working Lives with Traditional Attitudes: Gender Role Attitudes in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea.” International Journal of Japanese Sociology 25 (1): 100–116. Thebaud, Sarah. 2010. “Masculinity, Bargaining, and Breadwinning: Understanding Men’s Housework in the Cultural Context of Paid Work.” Gender & Society 24 (3): 330–354. Thomas, Susan Gregory. 2012 “The Gray Divorces.” Wall Street Journal, March 3. Thornton, Arland. 2005. Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thornton, Arland, and Linda Young-DeMarco. 2001. “Four Decades of Trends in Attitudes Towards Family Issues in the United States: The 1960s through the 1990s.” Journal of Marriage and Family 63:1009–1037. Tichenor, Veronica Jaris. 2005. Earning More and Getting Less: Why Successful Wives Can’t Buy Equality. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Tsuya, Noriko O., and Larry L. Bumpass, eds. 2004. Marriage, Work, and Family Life in Comparative Perspective: Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Honolulu, HI: East-West Center. van de Kaa, Dirk J. 2002. “The Idea of a Second Demographic Transition in Industrialized Countries.” Paper presented at the Sixth Welfare Policy Seminar of the National Institute of Population and Social Security, January 29, Tokyo. Vignoli, Daniele, and Irene Ferro. 2009. “Rising Marital Disruption in Italy and Its Correlates.” Demographic Research 20:11–36. West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society 1 (2): 121–151. Wilkie, Jane Riblett. 1993. “Changes in US Men’s Attitudes toward the Family Provider Role, 1972–1989.” Gender & Society 7 (2): 261–279. Willer, Robb, Bridget Conlon, Christabel L. Rogalin, and Michael T. Wojnowicz. 2013. “Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis.” American Journal of Sociology 118 (4): 980–1022. Williams, Joan C. 2000. Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2010. Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Yang, Myungji. 2017. From Miracle to Mirage: The Making and Unmaking of the Korean Middle Class, 1960–2010. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Yim, Cheol-Soon. 2013. “A Society Addicted to Alcohol and Sex.” Hankooki. com, May 30. [Korean] Yun, Jin-Su. 2004. “The Influence of the Constitutional Law on the Amendments of Family Law.” Seoul Law Journal 45 (1): 233–270. [Korean]

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inDe x

Page references in bold refer to figures and tables adultery, 68, 100–101, 109, 149n8. See also infidelity age: age hypergamy, 22; aging population, 152n8; cohabitation and, 28, 29; at divorce, 9, 139, 140–141, 142, 152n7, 155n4; familial exchange and, 82, 84, 97, 130; family hierarchy and, 2; at first marriage, 1, 25–26, 62, 158n6 (ch.7); legal age of marriage, 131; spousal age gaps, 27–28; standardization of age distribution, 152n11 alimony, 101, 106, 107, 126, 138, 157n3 alternative unions, 10. See also cohabitation; remarriage anxiety. See men’s provider anxiety a priori assumptions, 150n19 Article 840, 15–16, 126, 160n4; Clause 1, 65, 99, 101; Clause 2, 57, 65, 99; Clause 3, 39, 42, 57, 65, 99, 110, 111–112, 114; Clause 4, 65, 99; Clause 5, 65, 99; Clause 6, 39, 40, 42, 57, 64, 65, 67, 99, 111–113, 114, 128; grounds for divorce in, 15–16 bilateral family practices, 79–80 breadwinner role: identity vulnerability and, 7, 8, 71; infidelity and, 101; marriage stabilization and, 159n6; property

ownership and, 129; provider anxiety and, 53, 58; rigid norms about, 30 Burke, Peter J., 6, 8, 150n21, 151n28 burnt-out husbands, 32, 38–41, 119, 144 Busan Family Court: case 18, 103; case 20, 112–113; case 66, 111; case 80, 77; case 98, 107; case 112, 37–39; case 117, 113– 114; case 124, 39–40; case 127, 105; case 132, 107; as source of rulings, 144 businesses/small businesses, 119, 144; control of spouse and, 42; domestic violence and, 110–111; economic shocks/jobless, 45–46, 69, 119; infidelity and, 74, 102–104, 107–109, 155n6; male self-identity and, 41–45; provider anxiety and, 32; struggling with, 41–45, 119 causes of divorce, 1, 25; methodology and qualitative data, 135–137 Chang, Kyung-Sup, 152n3, 158n4, 159n1 Cherlin, Andrew J., 150n3, 154n20, 158n2 children’s education: competition in, 84; concerted cultivation, 83; corporategroup model and, 85; extended family and, 82–85; kirogi (wild-goose) families, 83; meddling by parents and investment in, 120; natural growth, 83; spending on, 46, 83–84; strategies for advancing, 84; as wife’s responsibility, 38

177

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178

Index

child support: custodial parents’ living conditions and, 157n3; as distinct from alimony, 157n3; postdivorce disputes over, 141; regulations on, 15; strengthening rules of enforcing of nonresident fathers’ payment of, 4 chulga oein (married outsiders), 2, 81 Civil Law: 1991 amendments, 4; 2008 amendments, 4; custom and, 2; democratic principles in, 9; fault-based litigation, 16; grounds for divorce, 15–16, 126; Kin-Inheritance Law (Chinjok Sangsokbeop) (Kin Law), 9, 15, 125–130; procedural ease of divorce law, 14, 15–16, 29; procedural tightening of divorce law, 126–128; social customs and, 65, 99; spousal adultery in, 100– 101. See also Article 840 class divide, 9, 10, 15, 30, 122, 146, 147 cohabitation, 28–29, 30; cohabitationto-marriage cohort, 29; cohabiter characteristics, 154n23; definitions of, 28; estimation of, 155n24; marriage-registration records and, 154nn22–23; percentages of, 28; pre/ post-first-marriage, 155n24; prevalence of, 28; rate of divorce and, 25; remarriage and, 28 cohorts: marriageable age cohort, 25–26; millennial marriage cohort, 8–9 compensatory acts, 10; curvilinear (reverse J-shape) relationship, 151n28; forms of, 7; hyper-masculine activities, 31; manhood acts, 31; role performance gaps and, 151n28 compressed modernity, 13, 80, 118, 119 computer gaming, 7, 32, 36, 40, 64 Confucian cultural norms: Chosun era and, 2; double standards of, 26; education and parental control, 156n9; filial piety, 84–85; legacy of, 30; neoliberal economy and, 96–97

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consent-based divorce. See mutual consent divorce Constitutional Court, 100, 133–134 conspicuous consumption, 7, 46, 66, 119 contradictory role perceptions of women, 10, 58, 59, 77–78; culpability and women’s infidelity as display of, 115; depressed housewives, 71–74, 120; divorce and, 123; insistence on own terms, 74–77, 120; self-serving, financially independent wives, 66–71, 120; unmet expectations of hypergamy, 59–65, 120; women’s infidelity as display of, 105–109 control of spouse: as common manhood act, 57; as compensatory act, 7, 31, 71; and contradictory role perceptions, 105; domestic violence and, 62, 111; financial issues and, 119; patriarchal family system and, 127; self-serving wives and, 66; small businesses and, 42–43. See also men’s provider anxiety; patriarchal family system; violence, domestic corporate-group model, 80, 81, 82–85, 85, 89, 92, 96 court rulings, 10, 125–126; abolishing hoju system, 133–134; analysis of, 160n3; case classifications, 10; Daegu Family Court cases, 65, 144; Daejun Family Court, 144; data from, 10, 31, 137–138, 139, 141–143, 144; fault-based litigation, 16; gender egalitarian principles in 1991 revision and transitions in women’s social status, 131–133; gender equality and, 130–131; irreconcilable differences, 39; legal revisions before 1990, 128– 130; patriarchalism and familism of first family laws, 128–130; on spousal support, 157n3; tightening procedural law of divorce, 126–128. See also Busan Family Court; Seoul Family Court; Supreme Court

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Index

crude divorce rate, 1, 9, 14, 45, 125, 134, 149n2, 153n15 crude marriage rate, 1, 149n2 culpability, 10, 78, 99–100; compensatory acts and, 120; defined, 99; divorce filed by culpable spouse, 160n4; as legal grounds for divorce, 10; marital dynamics and, 10; men’s infidelity as display of masculine identity, 101–105, 114–115; severely unjust treatment, 109–113, 115; spousal infidelity, 100– 101; of spouses, 99–115; women’s infidelity as display of contradictory role perceptions, 105–109, 115; women’s verbal abuse and reactive attacks, 113– 114, 115. See also infidelity; violence, domestic cultural issues: after-work gatherings, 42; Christian traditions, 30; Confucian cultural norms, 2, 26, 30, 84–85, 96–97, 156n9; cultural democratization, 5; cultural transitions, 2; intergenerational ties, 82; media/popular discourses and, 120; wedding culture, 55–56. See also gender-role norms; patriarchal traditions; patrilineal traditions custody: awarding of, 112; court rulings on, 126; giving up, 61; judicial discretion and, 100; mutual consent and, 137– 138; postdivorce disputes over, 141; regulations on, 15 daebak (good luck), 52, 119 Daegu Family Court, 65, 139, 144 Daejun Family Court, 139, 144 decision to divorce, 5–6, 10–11, 63, 70, 116–117 defensive masculinity displays: financial irresponsibility and, 120; marital dynamics and, 123, 144; men’s provider anxiety, 32, 52–57; resources and, 120 delayed marriages: finding spouses and, 62,

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179

84, 158n6 (ch.7), 159n19; registration delays, 28, 154n23; traditional gender norms and, 159n6; wedding cost and, 157n18 depressed housewives, 144; contradictory role perceptions of women, 71–74, 120; weak/poor spousal relationships and, 155n6 disharmony in extended family. See extended family division of labor, gender and, 3, 69, 159n6 divorce rates: crude divorce rate, 1, 9, 14, 45, 125, 134, 149n2, 153n15; ease of divorce and, 127; economic shocks and, 61; education and, 26–27, 153n15; fault-based rules and, 16; measures of, 149n2; in OECD countries, 4; rise in, 1–4, 9, 133; social context and, 14, 14–15; socioeconomic status and, 122 divorce registration, 45, 79, 100, 108, 127, 136–137, 153n15 divorce theory, 5, 10 “doing gender,” 11, 116–118; gender performance as distinct from, 151n36; implications of, 118–124; marital breakdown and, 11, 122; use of term, 151n36 Dutton, Donald G., 157n2 economic issues: economic crisis, 12, 29, 45–46; economic dependency, 8; economic growth, 3, 5, 12–13, 29, 46; economic independence of women, 4; economic shocks/jobless, 32, 144; housing costs, 47–48, 67; male selfidentity and, 45–46, 119; men’s provider anxiety and, 45–46, 119; poverty and divorce, 123. See also employment status; financial issues education: age and, 17, 19; as class indicator, 152n9; college enrollment

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180

Index

rates, 3; divorce and level of, 153nn12– 13, 153n15; expansion of, 14, 22; gender and, 3, 147, 160n8; liberalizing attitudes and, 24–25, 24; marital status and level of, 16–17, 19, 20, 22, 153n12; parents’ active involvement in, 156n9; remarriage and, 26–27; trends in attainment of, 16–17, 20, 22, 29. See also children’s education emotional issues: emotional withdrawal (stonewalling) pattern of spousal interactions, 123; identity-restoring acts and, 8 employment status: differentials in, 122; educational differentials in, 152n8; gender and, 3, 122, 147; low-paying service sector employment, 3; trends in, 17–18, 22, 29 ethics code, 2, 127, 149n8 expectations: gender-role expectations, 7, 120, 122, 123–124; role expectations as spouses, 10; unmet expectations of hypergamy, 59–65, 120. See also hypergamy expressive divorce, 4, 117 extended family, 10, 78, 79–80; as corporate-group model, 82–85; familism and, 159n1; intergenerational wealth transfer, 82–85, 98; meddling by husband’s parents, 85–91; meddling by wife’s parents, 92–98; motherhood and, 80–81; as reason for divorce, 45, 79; seven-vice rule, 2, 149n8. See also Confucian cultural norms; familism; family hierarchy; patriarchal family system extramarital affairs, 7, 158n5 (ch. 7). See also alimony; culpability; infidelity fake divorce, 73–74 familism: court rulings, 128–130; defined, 159n1; family law amendments, 128– 130; hoju system, 81, 125, 129, 130, 132,

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133–134; in Kin-Inheritance Law, 125, 128; values of, 131 family hierarchy: age and, 2; generational hierarchy, 128–129; legal aspects of, 128–129, 131, 133; mother identity and, 80–82; producing an heir, 81; status in, 81, 91. See also extended family family law: adultery laws and, 109; amendments, 4, 15–16, 101, 125–134, 141; fault-based litigation, 10, 15, 16, 65, 100, 127–128, 138, 142; gender equality and, 92, 130–131; hoju system, 81, 125, 129, 130, 132, 133–134; inheritance and, 81, 92; Kin-Inheritance Law (Chinjok Sangsokbeop) (Kin Law), 9, 15, 125–130; mutual consent divorce, 16, 34, 107, 136, 137, 141, 144; patriarchalism and, 125, 128–130; procedural ease of divorce law, 9, 14, 15–16, 29, 127; revisions to, 92; social custom and, 2, 65, 99, 126, 128. See also Civil Law; court rulings family law amendments, 101, 125–134, 141 family wealth: division of property, 101; golden-dusk/gray divorce and, 152n7 fertility: infertility effects, 90; patterns of, 13; rate decline, 1, 152n8; total fertility rate, 149n2 financial issues: debts, 48–50; female identity and relative earnings, 8; financially independent wives, 66–71, 120; financial risk, 32, 46–52, 119, 144; housing costs, 47–48, 67, 84; irresponsible financial transactions, 119; loans, 48, 51–52; male self-identity, 46–52; men’s provider anxiety, 46–52; mismanagement of finances, 8; wives’ percentage of family assets, 160n3. See also economic issues first marriages: age at, 1, 25–26, 62, 158n6 (ch. 7); childbearing/childrearing years and, 118–119; cohabitation before, 28–29; decline in rate of, 25–26;

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Index

181

education and, 153n12; golden pig and, 26; methodological criteria and, 9; zodiac system and, 26 flexible norms: media/popular discourses and, 124; self-identity and, 78, 121, 123; stabilization of marriage and, 8–9, 11, 121 functionalist theorists, 159n6

housewives, full-time: depression and, 71–74; expectations of being, 94; marriage stabilization and, 159n6; selfdefining as educating mothers, 157n17 hwanghon ihon. See golden-dusk divorce hypergamy: age hypergamy, 22; defined, 59; female hypergamy, 22, 144; unmet expectations of, 59–65, 120

gains to marriage theory, 4–5 gender: college enrollment rates and, 3; divorce and education level by, 147, 153n15; employment status and, 3; female hypergamy and, 22; genderdeviation neutralization, 8, 151n36; gender discrimination, 2; gendered nature of divorce, 122; liberalizing attitudes and, 25; self-identity and, 122. See also “doing gender” gendered division of labor, 3, 69, 159n6 gender egalitarianism, 81, 123, 131–133, 159n6 gender equality, 22, 130–131 gender hierarchy, 80, 81, 125; legal aspects of, 128–129, 131, 133 gender-role norms: expectations and, 7; flexible attitudes of, 123–124; flexible perceptions of, 11; internalization of, 120, 122; of in-laws, 120; perceptions and, 92; risk of divorce increase and, 8; role performance and, 121 Gerson, Kathleen, 123 globalization, 9, 82–85, 84, 86, 122 golden-dusk divorce (hwanghon ihon), 9, 119, 152n7 Gottman, John, 123 gray divorce, 9, 119, 152n7 grounded theory method, 6, 10, 147

identity: breadwinner norms and, 8; definitions of, 150n21; identity definitions, 150n21; identity-restoring acts, 8; identity standards, 31, 122; mother identity, 80–82; symbolic interactionist theorists on, 151n23 identity control theory, 6–7, 8, 31, 150n21 identity verification, 10; gender-deviation neutralization and, 8; high-earning husbands and, 158n5 (ch. 7); labormarket conditions and, 121–122; marital dynamics and, 147; masculine overcompensation and, 8; relationship breakdown and, 6, 122 IMF (International Monetary Fund): economic crisis, 45–46, 69 individualism: attitudes of, 159n6; divorce and, 123; freedom and, 159n1; growth of, 4; theory of, 4–5 industrialization, gendered division of labor and, 159n6 infidelity: Article 840, Clause 1, 100–101, 126; as cause of divorce, 8, 158n5 (ch. 7); culpability and, 99–100, 100–101; extramarital affairs, 7, 158n5 (ch. 7); as grounds for divorce, 15, 100; as identityrestoring acts, 8; legal definition of, 101; sex workers and, 104–105, 158n6; small businesses and, 102–104; women’s, 105– 109, 115. See also adultery inheritance: children’s equal share of, 132; gender egalitarianism and, 81, 92; intergenerational wealth transfer, 55, 82, 84, 92, 98, 105

helicopter parent, 156n9 hoju system: abolishment of, 81, 125, 133– 134; defined, 129; diminishment of, 132; revision of, 130

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182

Index

in-law conflicts, 144. See also parents of the spouses insistence on own terms, 74–77, 144 interactions: feedback loop of daily interactions, 151n23; negative patterns of, 123; small-group dynamics, 159n6; weak/poor relationships, 155n6 intergenerational wealth transfer, 55, 82, 84, 92, 98, 105 irreconcilable differences, 39, 57, 127 jonse lease, 47–48, 106 Kim, Mi-Sook, 31, 36, 49, 63, 69, 89, 110, 138–139, 141 Kim, Misook, 31, 63, 69, 89, 138–139, 141 Kin-Inheritance Law (Chinjok Sangsokbeop) (Kin Law), 9, 15, 125–130. See also family law kirogi (wild-goose) families, 83 labor markets: bifurcating, 30; gendered division of labor, 3; labor-force participation of married women, 4; polarization of, 3 Lareau, Annette, 156n9 lawnmower parent, 156n9 legal issues: adultery laws, 100–101; Constitutional Court, 100; culpability in divorce law, 99; filing for divorce, 144; pathways to legal divorce, 10; on spousal support, 157n3. See also family law; litigation-based divorce; mutual consent divorce liberalizing attitudes, 29, 159n6; age and, 23–24, 24; divorce and, 123; educational attainment and, 24–25, 24; gender and, 25; growth of, 4, 15 litigation-based divorce, 10, 15, 16, 65, 100, 127–128, 138, 142 love, 81, 89, 103, 109, 155n10, 158n2

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male self-identity, 31–32, 57–58; control of wives, 31; defensive masculinity displays, 52–57; reactions to economic shocks, 45–46; small businesses and, 41–45; taking financial risks, 46–52; threats to, 123; underemployed young husbands and, 32–38, 122; workingclass backgrounds and, 38–41 malicious desertion, 15, 57, 127 marital dynamics: decision to divorce distinction and, 6, 10–11; family dynamics and, 30; marriage breakdown and, 4–9; marital dissolution and, 4–9; small-group dynamics and, 159n6; spousal culpability and, 10; types of, 119, 144; typical patterns of, resulting in divorce, 147; of undivorced married persons, 121 marital status: data on transitions in, 153n15; educational attainment and, 152n11; trends in, 19–22, 29 marriage breakdown, 1–4; empirical data on, 10; methodology, 9; reasons for, 1–11; relationship dynamics, 4–9 marriage registration: cohabitation data from, 28–29, 154nn22–23; data from, 153n15; registration delays, 28, 154n23 masculine identity, 8, 31, 101–105, 114– 115, 124. See also male self-identity matchmaking, professional, 84, 108–109, 157n19 meddling by husband’s parents, 85–91 meddling by wife’s parents, 92–98 media/popular discourses on gender roles, 124 men’s provider anxiety, 10, 31–32, 57–58; burnt-out working-class men, 119; defensive masculinity displays, 32, 52–57, 120; defined, 31; reactions to economic shocks, 32, 45–46, 119; small businesses and, 32, 41–45, 119; taking financial risks, 32, 46–52, 119;

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Index

underemployed young husbands and, 32–38; violence and, 111; working-class backgrounds and, 32, 38–41 methodology, 10, 135; criteria, 9; data interpretation, 10; data sources, 31, 154n22; differences between risk factors, reasons, and causes, 135–137; empirical data, 10; qualitative methodology, 146– 147; reasons for divorce, from divorceregistration forms, 136–137; risk factors versus causes, 135; sources of data, 137– 146; subject-focused study, 3; survey data, 153n15, 154n22 middle class, 84, 156n9, 157n19 millennial marriage cohort, 8–9 Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (Yeoseong Gajokbu), 2 modernity: compressed modernity, 13, 80, 118; legal systems and, 2, 100–101, 128; modernization theories, 16, 23 mother identity, 80–82 Munsch, Christin L., 8 mutual consent divorce, 10, 16, 34, 107, 136, 137, 141, 144 National Statistics Office of Korea, 154n19 neoliberal economy, 3, 9, 12, 30, 47, 82, 96, 98, 122 never-married men, 22 never-married women, 22 no-fault divorce laws, 4 occupational distribution, trends in, 18–19, 22, 29 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, 4, 12, 83–84 parents of the spouses, 10; children’s education, 82–85; conflicts with, 120; disrespect for, 149n8; intergenerational wealth transfer, 84; meddling by

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183

husband’s parents, 85–91; meddling by wife’s parents, 92–98; mother identity, 80–82; severely unjust treatment, 16, 79–80 Park, Hyunjoon, 150n12, 152n10, 156n15 patriarchal family system: court rulings and, 128–130; cultural legacy of, 2–3, 9; familism as, 159n1; family law amendments and, 128–130; gender-role norms and, 92, 119; hoju system, 81, 125, 129, 130, 132, 133–134; maintaining ideals of, 32; mother identity and, 81–82 physical abuse, 7, 72–73; culpability and, 99–100, 110–113; as identity-restoring acts, 8. See also violence, domestic property: 1991 amendments and rights to, 132; division of, 101, 157n3; goldendusk/gray divorce and, 152n7 psychological damage: alimony as compensation for, 101, 157n3 psychological theory of divorce, 123, 124 qualitative data, 120–121, 135; differences between risk factors, reasons, and causes, 135–137; empirical data overview, 10; qualitative methodology, 146–147; reasons for divorce from divorce-registration forms, 136–137; risk factors versus causes, 135; sources of data, 137–146; survey data, 153n15 qualitative methodology: grounded theory method, 147; methodology, 10, 146–147; qualitative data, 31, 146–147 Raymo, James M., 149n5, 155n2, 158n4 reactive attacks: women’s, 113–114, 115 remarriage, 30, 153n12, 154n19; characteristics of female remarriage, 26–27; characteristics of male remarriage, 26–27; cohabitation before, 28–29; gender and, 26–28; rate of divorce and, 25–26

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184

Index

research issues: divorce literature, 3; dominant theories, 3–4; identity control theory, 6–7; identity verification thesis, 8–9; organization, 9–11; relationship dynamics, 5–6; scope of analysis, 9 revolving door analogy, 28, 29 risk of divorce, 8, 135, 135–137 role perceptions: feedback loop of daily interactions and, 151n23; role adaptations, 121–122. See also contradictory role perceptions of women role performance: compensatory acts and, 151n28; gender-role norms and, 121 roles: male provider, rigid expectations about, 123 roles, women’s: contradictory perceptions of, 3; mother identity, 80–82; transitional norms for, 123 Sayer, Liana C., 150n18, 151n26, 158n1, 159n12 self-identity, 10; as defined by roles, 8, 150n21; gendered, 122; maintenance of positive, 123; restoration of and infidelity, 31; role performance gaps and, 121, 151n28 self-indulgence, 7, 57, 66 self-serving perception, 54, 59, 66–71, 105, 107, 120, 144 Seoul Family Court: case 9, 111; case 19, 106; case 26, 63–64; case 31, 64; case 32, 103; case 35, 110–111; case 48, 56; case 52, 42; case 54, 103; case 57, 57; case 67, 112; case 74, 112; case 100, 55; case 105, 103; case 122, 40; case 129, 64–65; case 130, 106; case 134, 66; case 348, 103; family assets distribution in, 160n3; as source of rulings, 144; waiting period, 127–128 seven-vice rule, 2, 149n8 severely unjust treatment, 15, 39, 57, 109– 113, 115, 126–127. See also physical abuse; violence, domestic

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sexuality: estimated number of female sex workers, 158n6; female chastity and remarriage, 26; regulation of female sexuality, 101 siblings of the spouses: conflicts with, 80, 91 situational couple violence, 111–113 small businesses. See businesses/small businesses social context, 9–10, 12–15, 29–30; alternative unions, 9; decreasing social cost of divorce, 11; liberalizing attitudes, 9, 15, 23–25, 29; trends in educational attainment, 16–17, 22, 29; trends in employment status, 17–18, 22, 29; trends in marital status, 19–22, 29; trends in occupational distribution, 18–19, 22, 29 social cost of divorce, 4, 11, 117 social customs, 2, 65, 99, 126, 128. See also tradition(s) Social Statistics Survey (SSS), 23, 28, 154n22 social stratification systems, 121 socioeconomic status: cohabitation estimates and, 155n24; culpability and, 110–113; divorce rates and, 122; female hypergamy and, 22; infidelity and, 104– 105; probability of divorce and, 22, 122– 123, 147, 157n20 Song, Hyo-Jean, 160n3 Song, Yoo-Jean, 31, 138, 139, 141 sources of data: court rulings, 139, 141– 143, 144; in-depth interviews, 138– 139, 140; limitations and strengths of qualitative data, 143, 145–146; methodology, 137–146; qualitative data, 137–146; types of data, 137–138 spousal culpability. See culpability spousal infidelity (baeuja bujeong). See infidelity spousal support. See alimony spouses, 99–100; culpability, 99–115; severely unjust treatment, 109–113, 115;

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Index

spousal infidelity, 100–101, 105–109, 115 stabilization of marriage, 121; flexible norms and, 8–9, 11, 121; men’s provider anxiety and, 122 standardization: age distribution and, 152n11; employment status and, 152n8 Stets, Jan E., 6, 8, 150n21, 151n28 Stinchcombe, Arthur L., 146 stonewalling (emotional withdrawal) pattern of spousal interactions, 123 straying from marriage, 31 Stryker, Sheldon, 150n21 Supreme Court: case 4, 114; case 64, 72–73; on Clause 6, 99; on culpability, 99; family assets distribution in, 160n3; Library, 139, 141, 144 symbolic interactionist theorists, 147, 151n23 theories/theorists: classical theories, 159n6; divorce theory, 10; dominant theories, 3–4; functionalist theorists, 159n6; gains in marriage theory, 4–5; gender theories, 151n36; grounded theory method, 10, 147; home economists, 159n6; identity control theory, 6–7, 31, 150n21; individualism theory, 4–5; Marxist, 159n6; psychological theory of divorce, 123, 124; symbolic interactionist theorists, 147, 151n23 tiger mom, 156n9 tradition(s): Christian traditions, 30; legal interpretation of, 2. See also extended family; familism; patriarchal traditions; social customs trends: in educational attainment, 16–17, 20, 22, 29; in employment status, 17–18, 22, 29; in marital status, 19–22, 29, 158n6 (ch. 7); in occupational distribution, 18–19, 22, 29

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185

unemployed/underemployed: educational attainment and, 22; increase in divorce and, 122; underemployed young husbands, 32–38, 144; underemployment, 119 upper class: infidelity, 107–109; matchmaking and, 157n19; situational couple violence and, 111–113 verbal abuse, spousal, 7, 113–114, 115 violence, domestic, 96; characteristics of male batterers, 157n3; culpability and, 99–100, 110–113; infidelity as concurrent with, 101; provider anxiety and, 39, 111; severely unjust treatment, 39, 109–113; situational couple violence and, 111–113; by women, 113–115. See also physical abuse; verbal abuse wealth, family: division of property, 101; in middle age and golden-dusk/gray divorce and, 152n7 weddings: cost of as reason for delayed/ forgone marriages, 157n18; parental expenditures on, 84; wedding culture, 55–56 West, Candace, 151n36 widowed/widowhood, 153n12, 154n19 women, wealthy: infidelity and, 107–109; situational couple violence and, 111– 112. See also self-serving perception women, working: infidelity and, 106–107; lack of acceptance of mothers as, 156n17 wollum single-room occupancies, 47, 67 Won, Younghee, 31, 63, 69, 89, 138–139, 140 working-class men: as burnt-out husbands, 32, 38–41, 119, 144; male self-identity and, 38–41; men’s provider anxiety and, 37, 38–41 working-class women: infidelity and, 106– 107; mothers as, 156n17 zodiac system, 26

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a B ou t the au t hor

Yean-Ju Lee is associate professor in sociology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her research concerns family changes in South Korea and other East Asian countries, including Taiwan, Japan, and mainland China. She has explored how gender and generational relations are shaped by the economic environments in the context of rapid industrialization and then rising inequality. Most recently, her research examines how the lingering norms of gender division of labor may collide with the emerging gender equality in the institutions of education and labor markets to affect the patterns of union formation and dissolution. Her areas of teaching include sociology of family, demography, and statistics and quantitative methodology.

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h awa i ‘i St uDie S on Kor e a way n e paT T eRson

The Ilse: First-Generation Korean Immigrants, 1903–1973

l i n Da s. l e w i s

Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising

m ic h a el fi nc h

Min Yŏng-gwan: A Political Biography

m ic h a el j. seT h

Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea

c h a n e . pa R k

Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing

a n DR ei n. l a n kov

Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956

h a h n mo on-su k

And So Flows History

T i moT h y R. Ta ngh eR l i n i a n D sa l l i e y e a, eDiToRs

Sitings: Critical Approaches to Korean Geography

a l e x a n DeR vov i n

Koreo-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin

y u ng-h ee k i m

Questioning Minds: Short Stories of Modern Korean Women Writers

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TaT i a na ga BRoussen ko

Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy

k y u ng-a e pa R k, eDiToR

Non-Traditional Security Issues in North Korea

c h a R l oT T e hoR lyc k a n D m ic h a el j. peT T i D, eDiToRs

Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in Korea: Critical Aspects of Death from Ancient to Contemporary Times

ca R l f. you ng

Eastern Learning and the Heavenly Way: The Tonghak and Ch’ŏndogyo Movements and the Twilight of Korean Independence

D on Ba k eR, w iT h f R a n k l i n R ausc h

Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in Chosŏn Korea

son ja m . k i m

Imperatives of Care: Women and Medicine in Colonial Korea

y e a n-j u l ee

Divorce in South Korea: Doing Gender and the Dynamics of Relationship Breakdown

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