CONTINUING EXISTENCE OF
EXTENDED FAMILIES
• All happy families are alike; each
unhappy family is unhappy in its own
way.
- Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina) -
If you go to war, pray once
If you go on a sea journey, pray twice
But pray three times if you are going to be
married
Small children give you headache; big
children heartache
Russian Proverbs -
-
• When two people are under the
influence of the most violent, most
insane, most delusive, and most
transient of passions, they are required
to swear that they will remain in that
excited, abnormal, and exhausting
condition continuously until death do
them part.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
• Lecture Outline
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Family patterns in Korea
Extended families in Korea
Divorce in Korea
“Home is a place to rest”
Empty-shell marriages.
• The family is a social institution found in
every culture.
• One common definition of a family is “a
group of people related by marriage,
ancestry, or adoption who live together
in a common household.”
• Other characteristics are that the adults
in the group assume responsibility for
any offspring; and that the members of
the family form an economic unit for
producing goods and services.
• The family is a unit within a much wider
social network of relatives called kinship.
• A kinship network is highly complicated:
• 1. Primary relatives (7 possible types—
father, mom, brother, sister, spouse, son
and daughter);
• 2. Secondary relatives (33 additional
types—mother-in-law, father-in-law,
nephew, niece, uncle, aunt); and
• 3. Tertiary relatives (151 more types—
the primacy relatives of your secondary
relatives).
• Total: 191 types of relatives.
• A wide diversity of marriage patterns exist
in the world:
• 1. In many cultures, marriages are still
arranged by the parents.
• 2. In a few societies, an infant may be
“married” before birth (if the baby is of
the wrong sex, the marriage is dissolved).
• 3. Some societies do not recognize the
existence of romantic love.
• 4. Most cultures expect older men to
marry younger women
• 5. Most societies prohibit the marriage of
close relatives.
• 6. In some societies, a man, upon
marrying, makes a substantial gift to the
bride’s father.
• 7. In others, the bride’s father gives a
substantial gift to the new husband’s
family (dowry).
I. CHARACTERISTICS OF MARRIAGE
AND FAMILY IN KOREA
1. Monogamous
2. Question: Patrilocal, matrilocal or neolocal?
 Largely Neo-local
 - Both matrilocal and patrilocal during the
Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392); newlyweds stayed
in the wife’s home until she gave birth and the
child had grown up. Then they moved to the
husband’s house. Sometimes the husband
stayed permanently in the wife’s house.
 - Changed to Patrilocal during the Joseon
Dynasty
3. Q: Patrilineal, matrilineal or bilateral in descent
and inheritance?
• Bilateral descent and inheritance
• - Patrilineal during the Joseon Dynasty
4. Age at First Marriage
• As of 2010, age at first marriage was 31.8 for
men and 28.9 for women, both of which are
the highest ever.
• These figures represent nearly four-year
increase in 20 years (age at first marriage was
27.8 for men and 24.8 for women in 1990).
• The age at first marriage has been rising ever
since such data have been compiled since 1970.
5. Age Differences in Marriage
• The proportion of first marriages involving older
woman amounted to 14.3% in 2009, rising by 0.6%
from 13.7% in 2008.
-10.6% comprised couples in which brides were
1~2 years older, followed by 3.0% for 3~5 years
older brides, 0.6% for 6~9 years, and 0.1% for 10
years or more.
• The proportion of first marriages involving older
man amounted to 69.7%, falling 0.8% from the
previous year.
- 27.7% comprised couples in which bridegrooms
were 3~5 years older, followed by 26.4% for 1-2
year older bridegrooms, 10.4% for 6~9 years, and
5.2% for 10 years or more. The figure for 10 years
or older bridegrooms more than doubled from
2.3% in 1999 to 5.2% in 2009.
6. Increasingly egalitarian relationship
 - Still, wives, including those working
outside the home, are found to do far
more hours of household work than their
husbands.
 Among double-income couples, wives
spent 2 hrs 47 min a day doing household
work, while husbands spent only 20
minutes a day (2005).
 Fulltime homemakers spent 4 hrs 19
minutes a day doing household work,
while husbands whose wives are fulltime
homemakers spent only 15 min.
 Are women really the masters of their
domain, the home?
7. Q: Exogamous or endogamous marriage?
 Endogamous Marriage
 Koreans marry partners who are of similar age,
education level, religious and class background.
 Families raise young people to identify with a
particular group and encourage to stay within
their group.
 Marrying outside of the group is discouraged.
 Mate selection is determined by individual’s
“assets” that is brought to the marriage market.
 Mate selection is very “calculated,” as people
look for mates who have similar backgrounds:
financial assets; status; occupation; educational
level; values; taste
• The West: Marriage considerations
based on emotion, i.e., feeling,
romance, love, etc.
• Korea: Marriage considerations based
on practicality or practical concerns,
e.g., wealth, job, etc.
8. Q: Extended or nuclear family?
 Nuclear Family
 According to the 2005 census, there were
15,988,000 households in Korea.
 Two-generation nuclear families totaled
8,807,000 (55.4%), while 3-generation
extended families numbered 1,093,000
(6.9%) and 4-generation families
amounted to 16,000 (0.1%).
 Also, one-person households numbered
3,171,000 (20%), while 2-person
households totaled 3,521,000 (22.2%).
 The proportion of those in their 30s who
remain single jumped from 13.4% in 2000
to 21% in 2005.
• With the rapid ageing of the population,
another social change has been the rise in the
number of the elderly who live alone.
• The number of such elderly households
totaled over 830,000 in 2006, but increased to
around 880,000 in 2007, 930,000 in 2008, and
980,000 in 2009 (Hangukilbo 2010).
• As of July 2010, the number of elderly-only
households reached 1.04 million, marking the
first time such number totaled over one
million mark.
• The reason for the rapid increase in the
number of such elderly-only households
is the rapid ageing of the population plus
a rapid transition from extended families
to nuclear families since the 1960s, when
Korea began undergoing a rapid
industrialization, modernization and
urbanization.
• The fact that many elderly were left
behind in the countryside during these
processes has also contributed to the
rapid rise of the elderly-only households.
• Q: What proportion of the Korean elderly
live with their children?
• A: As of 2010, only 35.3% of the elderly in
Korea lived with their children, which was a
significant drop from the rate of 42.7% in
2002. in 2010.
• Correspondingly, the proportion of the
elderly-only households has increased over
the years, e.g., 56.7% in 2002 → 62.8% in
2010.
•
II. EXTENDED FAMILY AND THE
ELDERLY
• As mentioned earlier, some 35% of the elderly
in Korea live with their children.
• Question: Why do some Koreans live in
extended families?
 Factors that figure in the maintenance of
extended families:
1. Economic factors: whether the parents and
children can afford independent household
economies, particularly housing ( jeonse).
2. Practical considerations:
• a) child care: when double-income
couples need child care; and
• b) elderly care: when elderly parents
become too old to take care of
themselves; the extended family
functions as a substitute welfare
institution.
3. Normative factors:
• Sense of obligation, “it’s the right thing to
do” view; and
4. Affective factors:
• Either the children or the parent may
want to co-reside due to their
psychological attachment to each other.
• The elderly tend to live on their own
when both spouses are alive, while single
parents tend to live with their adult
children.
•
III. DIVORCE IN KOREA
1. Methods of Calculating the Divorce Rate
 Question: Do you know how divorce rate
is calculated?
 a. Ratio of Divorces to Marriages
 The number of marriages and divorces in a
given year can be compared as a ratio.
 b. Divorces per 1000 Population (Crude
Divorce Rate)
 The number of divorces in a given year can
be expressed as a rate for every 1,000
members of the population.
2. Facts About Divorce
a. Age of spouses (20s, 30s, 40s, etc. ?)
- Divorce is most likely to occur when
the partners are in their twenties.
b. Length of engagement (brief or long)
- Divorce rates are higher for those who
had a brief engagement.
c. Age at marriage (young age or older?)
- People who marry at a very young age
(particularly teenagers) are more apt to
divorce.
d. Length of marriage:
- Between 40-49% of divorces occurred
within 3 years of marriage in the last
decade.
- Divorce rate also rises shortly after the
children are grown.
e. Social Class
- Divorce occurs more frequently at the
lower socioeconomic levels.
f. Education
- Divorce rates are higher for those with
fewer years of schooling.
g. Residence
- Divorce rates are higher in urban areas.
h. Second Marriages
- The more often individuals marry, the
more likely they are to get divorced again.
i. Religion
- The more religious individuals are, the
less apt they are to divorce.
- Higher divorce rates for interfaith
marriages than for single-faith ones.
3. The Rising Divorce Rate
• More than 50% of marriages end in
divorce in the U.S., and about 40%
of marriages end in divorce in Korea.
• The divorce rate has gradually been
increasing practically all over the
world.
• Korea boasts one of the world’s highest
divorce rates:
• a. It jumped 10 times in the last 30 years.
• b. Women initiate divorces in about twothirds of all divorce cases.
• c. Ratio of divorces to marriages was:
11.9% in 1990; 31.9% in 1999; and 47.4%
in 2002, which was the third highest in
the world, following the U.S. (51%) and
Sweden (48%).
• Norway was fourth with 44%, followed by
England with 42%, Canada 38%, France
33%, and Germany 30.
• d. The crude divorce rate (per 1,000 pop.)
was
• 0.5% in 1978; 0.6 in 1980; 1.1 in 1990; 1.5
in 1995;
• 2.5 in 2000 (4.2 in the U.S., 2.9 in the U.K.,
2.4 in Sweden, 2.3 in Germany, 2.0 in
Japan and France; and 1.8 in Taiwan);
• 3.0 in 2002;
• 3.5 in 2003;
• 2.9 in 2004; and
• 2.6 in 2005
• e. Divorces involving couples married for
less than 4 years comprise the largest
proportion at 28.4% in 2008 (it was 25.2% in
2004).
• f. Divorces involving couples who had been
married for more than 20 years has soared
from 7.2% of all divorces in 1994 to 18.3%
in 2004 and 23.1% in 2008.
• g. Divorces involving women aged between
45-54 years old increased from 11.5 % of
the total in 2000 to 20.3% in 2006.
•
4. Reasons for getting divorced:
• 1. Personality differences: 49.7%;
• 2. Financial difficulties: 14.6%
• 3. Troubles with in-laws: 8.9%
• 4. Infidelity: 7.6%
• 5. Mental and physical abuse: 4.5% (2006
Census)
• Remarriages accounted for 17.9% of all
marriages in 2000, but the rate jumped
to 25.2% in 2005.
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No fault divorce law
Reasons for divorce:
Refusal to have sex: Y Or N?
No
Couples who had no sex for 7 years: Y Or N?
Yes
Wife caught doing phone sex: Y Or N?
Yes
Man asking to have sex too often: Y Or N?
Yes
Grace period of 1 month for childless couples
Grace period of 3 months for couples with
children
5. Reasons for the Rising Divorce Rate in
Korea
• There are many reasons for marital
breakdown.
• Some obvious causes are 1) economic strife;
2) incompatibility; 3) infidelity; 4) jealousy; 5)
verbal or physical abuse; and 6) interference
from relatives and friends.
• But these factors have been around for
centuries.
• How do we explain the recent rise in the
number of divorces?
• a. The high value we place on romantic
love.
• We are socialized to believe in the glories
of romantic love where “love conquers
all.”
• Movies, TV programs, magazines, and
books continually portray “happy­ending”
romantic adventures.
• All of these romantic stories suggest that
we should all fall in love with that one
special person, get married, and live
happily ever after.
• However, “happily ever after” is an ideal
that rarely happens.
• In this kind of cultural atmosphere, people
develop high expectations for married
life, i.e., be sexually exciting, full of
adventure, and always as wonderful as the
good moments of the courtship.
• Unfortunately, marriage involves washing
dishes and clothes, putting up with one’s
partner’s distasteful habits (for example,
belching), changing diapers, and
differences in sexual interests.
• b. The unwillingness of some men to
accept the changing demands and needs
of women.
• Many men still prefer a traditional
marriage where the husband is dominant
and the wife plays a supportive
(subordinate) role as housekeeper, and
emotional comforter.
• Many women no longer accept such a
status and demand an equalitarian
marriage in which domestic tasks and
raising the children are shared
responsibilities.
• c. The changing attitude of women
• As women became better educated, they
became more conscious of their life
situations and are aware of other
possibilities.
• So, they resort to dissolving, instead of
tolerating, unhappy marriages.
• d. More women have become
economically self-sufficient.
• Women who work outside the home are
no longer as heavily reliant financially on
their husbands.
• Women who are able to support
themselves financially are more likely to
seek a divorce if their marriages go sour.
•
• e. The growth of individualism
• Individualism is the belief that people
should seek self-actualization; develop their
interests and capacities to the fullest; and
seek to fulfill their own needs and desires
rather than sacrificing oneself for the
wellbeing of the group.
• People in our society have increasingly
come to accept individualism as a way of
life.
• f. Growing acceptance of divorce in our
society
• With less of a stigma attached to a divorce, more
people who are unhappily married are now ending
the marriage.
• g. The family as an institution is less
important as it was in the past.
• Double-income couples spend so much time
outside the home.
• Modern families no longer have as many functions
as traditional families.
• Education, food production, entertainment and
other functions which were once centered in the
family are now largely provided by outside agencies.
•
• Other possible reasons:
• Lack of dating culture: People do not have
enough knowledge about and experience of
romantic relationships to handle “couple
problems.”
• Lack of independence: Until marriage, Koreans
are “pampered” by their parents, which make
them rely on their parents for handling all
types of situations. But successful marriage
requires couples to cope with the difficulty of
making adjustments and compromises on their
own.
• Low fertility rate: Korean women have recordlow fertility rate, which makes it easier for them
to get divorced.
6. Consequences of Divorce
• A. People going through the divorce
must decide on issues that involve bitter
differences of opinions:
• i. Dividing up the personal property
between the two.
• ii. Custody of the children—clashes over
visiting rights and child support.
• B. Consequences of divorce on divorcing
parties:
• i. Likely to suffer from depression and
psychosomatic symptoms (e.g., loss of
appetite, sleep problems, increased
drinking, etc.);
• ii. Suffer from economic difficulties—the
fact that the custodial parent is ordinarily
the mother exacerbates household
economic distress;
• iii. More likely to be fired during this
period;
• iv. Have higher rates of suicide, homicide,
accidents and diseases leading to death;
• v. Divorced people have a shorter life
expectancy;
• vi. Face a number of emotional concerns:
1) a feeling of failure; 2) loneliness; 3)
stigma attached to divorce; 4) negative
reactions of friends and relatives; and 5)
self-doubts as to whether they can make
it on their own.
• vii. Concerns about how the divorce will
affect children.
• Some researchers argue that the impact is
wholly negative, while others suggest that
children are better off in a single-parent
household than in one where the parents
are constantly in conflict.
• A divorce may be better for the children
because they may no longer be subjected
to the tension and unhappiness of a
marriage that has gone sour.
• C. Adjustment to Divorce
• One initiating the divorce experiences less
stress and readier adjustment, for she or
he has the advantage of some sense of
control over the emerging situation.
• For most individuals, divorce is a shortterm crisis, a period of adjusting to
different routines and circumstances.
• Most persons who divorce remarry (in the
U.S., over 70% of all divorced women and
an even higher percentage of divorced
men).
• Adjustment to divorce requires a variety
of conditions:
• 1. Regenerating one’s sense of self worth
and trust of others;
• 2. Building a new lifestyle;
• 3. Finding a new place to live;
• 4. Making new friends;
• 5. Doing things alone in our coupleoriented society; and
• 6. Trying to make it financially on one’s
own.
• Divorce per se is no longer automatically
assumed to be a social problem.
• In some marriages where there is
considerable tension, bitterness, and
dissatisfaction, divorce is sometimes a
solution.
• It may be a concrete step that some
people take to end the unhappiness and
to begin leading more productive and
gratifying lives.
• DIVORCE LAW
• In the past, society attempted to make the
breakup of marriages almost impossible.
• One way it did was by having laws that
made divorce difficult to obtain: Once one
of the spouses petitioned the court for a
divorce, long waiting periods ensued before
a divorce could be obtained.
• Divorce courts also followed “adversary”
judicial procedures in which the spouse
seeking the divorce had to document or
prove that the other spouse was guilty of
some offence such as adultery, desertion, or
cruel and inhuman treatment.
•
In Korea, seven legal grounds for divorce are as follows:
• 1. when the spouse commits an adultery;
• 2. when the spouse abandons the partner;
• 3. when the spouse is seriously ill-treated by the
partner or by the latter’s immediate family members;
• 4. when the spouse’s immediate family members are
seriously ill-treated by the partner;
• 5. when the spouse’s life or death status is uncertain
for longer than 3 years;
• 6. other reasons that make the continuation of
marriage too hard to endure; and
• 7. divorce by agreement.
• In many cases, the actual motives for the
divorce, such as incompatibility, no longer
finding the relationship satisfying, never been in
love with the spouse or no longer in love with
the spouse, were inadequate reasons for the
court to allow the divorce to take place.
• Often the marital partners contrived a story to
accommodate the legal requirements for
divorce.
• Because of these difficulties, western societies
have passed “no fault” divorce laws, which allow
the couple to obtain a divorce fairly rapidly by
stating to the court that they both agree their
marriage has irreparably broken down (The
adversary process is still available for any spouse
who chooses it).
• In the US, the mothers are awarded custody
of children in 90 percent of divorce cases (In
Korea, it is probably the other way around,
with fathers winning the vast majority of
custody cases).
• In the US, many states allow children over 14
to select the parent with whom they wish to
live if that parent is fit.
• For children under age fourteen, custody be
awarded to the primary caretaker parent,
defined as the parent who:
• prepares the food;
• changes the diapers, dresses, and bathes the
child;
• takes the child to school, church, and
other activities;
• makes appointments with a doctor and
generally watches over the child’s health;
and
• interacts with the child’s friends, the
school authorities, and other adults
engaged in activities that involve the
child.
• It is not surprising that the “primary
caretaker” is usually the mother.
IV. HOME IS A PLACE TO REST
• Traditional separation of work mirroring
earlier periods exists today.
• Divides men’s “outside” world with
women’s “inside” world.
• For men, home has become secondary
to the job and community in the office.
• Thus, the home becomes a luxury and a
place to rest, to recharge the man and
make him ready for the day ahead.
Traditional Values of the Joseon Dynasty
• Women’s and men’s roles and positions
were strictly defined by relation to house
and their jobs, either “inside” or “outside.”
• Strict rules in division of labor
• Harsh treatment of women
• Showing love and affection was frowned
upon
• Became more conservative in the late
19th century
Business Life, Man’s World
• The work environment is reinforcing the old
social structures seen in Korean culture
• Korean men rate work more important than
the family, more so than their counterparts
in Japan
• Work becomes a “family” for men that they
must be devoted to it in order to succeed
• The company takes on many roles of the
family
• Women employees are pushed out of this
community of men
Home as a Place to Rest
• The man is the breadwinner and his social
commitments at work take precedent over
all other options
• The roles of domestic and public roles
within a family are constructed and
reinforced by company culture
• This not only forces women out of the
workplace, but also constructs their duties
as overseers of the home and whose job it
is to look after their husbands
• Men’s first priority is that of the public role
of businessmen (salary person) and social
contact
V. EMPTY-SHELL MARRIAGES
• The number of empty-shell marriages or
yuryeongbubu (ghost couples) is unknown—it may be
as high or higher than the number of happy marriages.
• 1. Characteristics of empty-shell marriages:
• a. The spouses feel no strong attachments to each
other.
• b. Enjoy few activities together and seldom display
pleasure in being in each other’s company.
• c. There is little fun or laughter and members do not
share their problems or experiences with each other.
• d. Little spontaneous expression of affection or sharing
of a personal experience.
• e. Sexual relations are rare and generally
unsatisfying.
• f. Children are often starved for love, or
they receive the love that would otherwise
go to the spouse.
• g. As members are highly aware of each
other’s weaknesses and vulnerable points,
they manage to mention these areas
frequently in order to hurt each another.
•
2. There are three types of empty-shell
marriages.
1. Devitalized relationship
- Husband and wife lack excitement for or real
interest in their spouse or their marriage.
- Boredom and apathy
- Serious arguments are rare.
2. Conflict-habituated relationship
- They frequently quarrel, particularly in private.
- They put up a facade of compatibility.
- Considerable conflict, tension, and bitterness.
 3. Passive-congenial relationship
 - Neither partner is happy with the
marriage, but both are generally content
with their lives and very seldom quarrel.
 - May have some interests in common,
but that adds very little excitement or
romance to the relationship.
 - Contributes little to each other’s real
satisfactions.

• Then, why do couples remain in empty-shell
marriages?
• 1. Couples, especially mothers, believe that ending
the marriage would harm the children.
• 2. Outward appearances—to avoid negative
reactions of relatives, friends and others.
• 3. Couples may believe that getting a divorce is
morally wrong.
• 4. Couples may believe, especially those who are
affluent, loveless marriage is preferable to
unhappy marriage and to the uncertainty of
remarriage.
• 5. Investment reasons (husband and wife may
have a luxurious home and other property that
they do not want to lose by parting).
•