Adultery = Divorce in Korea

I was chewing the fat with a friend of mine yesterday...he studied law here and had some pretty interesting insights into the Korean system. I had heard that adultery is illegal in Korea and that about one-third of the women in prison here are there for that reason...but that the men do not face time if they are implicated. Made sense to me, as it's a man's world here. As it turns out, I wasn't quite right.

Here's the deal: if a married person (in Korea this is usually a man) has an affair and is caught then the both of them can go to jail for four (if a high-priced lawyer is used) to six (if not) months. Not only that, but as soon as the adultery charges are laid divorce preceedings begin and if found guilty the couple are automatically divorced at the end of the trial. Many younger folk are up in arms about this: they claim that the punishment is too harsh. I figure that jail time for adultery is a little steep, too. Wouldn't it be better to put drunk drivers (I know there are some here) in those cells?

But, as with so many things, this is not as it seems. For one, the only person that can lay adultery charges is the wife; and it's supposed that about 1% of wives actually do this because of the social stigma--and the fact that they'll be divorced if it's true...although with a conviction she'd get more out of the guy in alimony.

As well, the burden of proof is something like that in a capital case. Get this: if the two are just fooling around then it's not adultery. There needs to be complete, um, penetration (sorry, trying to make this as G-rated as possible) in, um, the spot. Just oral fixations are not enough. Also, there needs to be physical evidence: sperm, to be exact. So if nothing, um, 'big' happens then no crime. (Obviously, as you may have guessed, if the gal remains a virgin then the both of them are Scot-free...which seems a little odd, to say the least.)

Here's an anecdote: wife suspects an affair; she finds out the two are in a hotel together; she alerts the police who go there and enter the room; they find him and the girlfriend naked in the room. No arrest. Why? Well, they were just talking and they had their clothes off because it was so hot...no penetration, no physical evidence, no case. The wife didn't give up, though--she gathered 'evidence' from many used rooms and won her case and got her divorce and a big severance package. (Why the husband wasn't scared straight after the police raid I'll never figure out.)

So, if you think about it...this law is not really AGAINST adulterous relations (it's bloody hard to prove and limited in scope) but perhaps it's FOR divorce. The couple get it automatically, and since many Korean men have girlfriends an industrious wife who wants to cut loose can use this law to get what she wants: away from him, more money and a chance to put him and the girlfriend in the clink. However, I think criminal charges are pretty severe: it's a moral problem but not exactly up there with assault, burglary and murder.

It's just another part of Korea that is incredibly different from the West. (Oh ya, and if what we know is true, Clinton would not have been touched by this law.)