ETN TV reports that Gangnam Police Station has filed for an arrest warrant for entertainer and former Miss Korea Kim Ye-bun (31) on charges of adultery. That’s right, dear readers — adultery is a criminal offense in Korea.
The story began on July 30, when Korean-American Mrs. Choe (40) pressed charges again her husband Mr. Kim (40), a U.S. residency holder, and the former Miss Korea for adultery. Choe claimed, “Kim Ye-bum frequently met with my husband between April and July, with shameful things occurring, and my family was ruined.” According to the wife, her husband came back to Korea in July 2003 to begin local sales of the couple’s clothing brand (the couple run a clothing retailer in the U.S.). Anyway, he started attending a health club near his home in Gangnam, where an acquaintance introduced him to Ms. Kim.
Anyway, Mr. Kim brought Ms. Kim back to his home in Los Angeles in April of this year, where she lived with the couple for a week. At that time, the husband introduced Ms. Kim as a “business partner,” and she and Mrs. Choe reportedly grew close. Not as close as her husband and Ms. Kim, apparently.
Anyway, Choe learned something was up in early July when she got a strange vibe listening to a telephone conversation between her husband and the former Miss Korea, who was now back in Korea. She began pressing her husband on the issue, and while she was at it, she discovered a photo of Ms. Kim and her husband that was apparently none too pleasing.
Anyway, Choe had claimed the two began having sex in April at Mr. Kim place in Korea, and even before bringing her to LA, the two apparently took a trip together to Los Vegas. And after the two returned to Korea in May, they apparently started living together at Mr. Kim’s Gangnam pad. Very naughty, and in Korea, very illegal.
Anyway, Kim Ye-bun had been denying all this, but the fact that the police have now applied for an arrest warrant means prosecutors now believe they have an open and shut case.
31 Comments
^^ h&t, dude, get sued is only ONE of your many worries…
karate dude’s wife
There isn’t a law on the books that could keep a man from committing adultery with this gal. Not one.
and the point is?€???€?enlightened?€™ white american self-righteous finger pointing hypocrisy knows no bounds.
The point is, nothing. It is the most-looked at piece over at Yahoo! Korea, though. And I’m not finger-pointing. I just link to it because I, like most Netizens in Korea, find tabloid crap fun to read, especially because I spend my day (and much of my evening) translating “hard news” for a living.
Of course, if mindless crap ain’t your cup of tea, bluejives, seven Uri Party members are now camped out in party chairman Lee Bu-young’s office to protest yesterday’s Uri-GNP deal to normalize the National Assembly:
http://news.naver.com/news/rea.....enu_id=100
Oh, and they’re demanding that the bill to abolish the National Security Law be voted on (i.e., passed) by the end of the year. They plan to occupy Lee’s office until Dec. 30.
Cant believe theyre trying to enforce this crap. Its a total travesty. Hipocracy at its worst. Korea is probably within the top 5 adultery nations of the world.
Four very good words why you don?€™t want to cheat on your spouse in the United States:
John and Lorena Bobbit
Hmm, where did steve get his “probably within the top 5 adultery nations of the world” fact? What I want to know is how often one hears about the adulterous men being arrested. That is one thing I am angry about Korean judicial system - almost every time I visited Korea, I hear about these women being arrested and put to shame in public yet men who frequent saloons and cheat on their wives get away with it - as a Korean woman, that pisses me off. If it’s illegal, they should arrest all the men as well! BTW, I don’t think Bobbitt case was an adultery case…. Of course, if you cheat on your spouse and then kill the spous AND your unborn child, there’re consequences - you may find yourself playing house with other death-row inmates, even getting to play ‘wife’.
^^ With all due respect, pooh, I believe it was mentioned that Mrs Chae, the wronged individual, pressed charges against both her husband and the former Miss Korea.
Should Adultery Be a Crime in Korea?
Hot Debate on “Adultery”
By Kim Myun Joong
Staff Reporter
Do you remember the movie “The Scarlet Letter”? This movie opens with Hester being led to the scaffold where she is to be publicly shamed for having committed adultery. Hester is forced to wear the letter “A” - which is an initial of the term “adultery” - on her gown always.
What about “The Bridges of Madison County”? This movie is about the love between a middle-aged, Italian-American housewife and a photographer of National Geographic. But what if they met and fell in love with each other in Korea? They might be punished in the name of the law.
Should adultery be a crime? One of major debates in Korea these days. Responding to a challenge by a couple having an extramarital affair, the Constitutional Court on Oct. 25 ruled that Article 241 of the criminal law is constitutional. This is the third time since 1990 that Article 241 has been challenged.
The Court said that the law was necessary to preserve the morals and the integrity of a monogamous society and also to protect society from family problems and other ills that arise from adultery. However, the Court proposed that lawmakers seriously consider whether or not to abolish Article 241 as a criminal offense in view of the legal codes in other countries and changes in Korea’s attitudes toward sex.
According to a recent survey, 69% of the respondents -55% of the males and 84% of the females - support the law. But 75% of all Korean men admit to adultery while only 15% of females do. Civic and feminist groups are taking up the debate. There are various voices on this issue. Park So Hyun, an advisor at “The Korean Legal Aid Center for Family Relations” says “We support the adultery law because of women’s economic situation. If women divorced, they would be in trouble because women have less ability to make money. The law also upholds moral, family and traditional values.”
“The government should not interrupt the people’s right to pursue love and happiness with those of their choosing”, says Yang Hai Kyoung, chief advisor of “the Korean Women Link.”
“Private rights need to be protected. People used to think that the law was intended to protect women but this is not the real situation,” she continues. “Even though men commit adultery more than women do, men complain about adultery more than women. Women tend to bear the burden of adultery. Therefore, the law is not effective in dealing with adultery,” she adds.
Editor of “If” (a feminist magazine) Kim-Shin Myung Sook says “Adultery laws are no longer effective because society is changing. People assume that Article 241 is for women. But nowadays women are also committing adultery. So the law doesn’t protect women’s rights.”
Kim Sung Chun, professor of law at Choongang University, says: “Even though adultery is morally or ethically bad, there is something wrong for the criminal law to deal with adultery because criminal law is the law that deals with social crimes.” “Even though there is some good function of this law in that it can protect women who are seen as weak in society, there are some problems as women use the law to get revenge,” she says.
“Korea, Taiwan, Greece, Switzerland and Austria are the only non-Muslim countries that still criminalize adultery. As Korea’s social structure modernizes, pressure will mount to rescind this law in Korea,” she adds.
Adultery is not a social ill that can or should be fixed by government intervention. Koreans should advocate separation between the Bedroom and the State.
i agree that they should arrest and shame the adulterer men too. just arresting the women while letting the men get off free shows the strong legacy of male dominance in korean society. throw those jerks in the slammer!
on a related note - korea has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. decline of marriage?
(its 1.2 according to a democgraphy researcher freidn of mine, although the CIA world factbook says 1.5)
bluejives, I did read that - but he’s a US resident so can he still be charged with adultery in Korea? I agree that adultery should be a personal matter, not a criminal one. I personally don’t condone cheating whether in a marriage or in a committed relationship - but it also bugs me that there is a double standard (a universal one, not only in Korea) regarding men vs. women who cheat.
LOL!
“i agree that they should arrest and shame the adulterer men too…”
said a self-righteous, indignant fellow named LOTHARIO
pooh, you raise a very good point.
let’s see…i’m a Kyopo of US citizenship. if i go to Korea right now and steal something or do something else to break the law, will the authorities let me off the hook simply because I am not a Korean national?
Bluejives - Why must you make a big fuss about people reporting the news as it is and stating their opinions on the topic? It seems to me that you are more self-righteous than others to call others self-righteous, especially an American living in the U.S. Your arrogance and knack for trying to defeat your own argument is only laughable.
bluejives, yes but theft is theft - it’s illegal everywhere… well, I suppose, in strict Muslim countries, one does get punished for possession of alcoholic beverage even if he/she is from a country where booze is legal…. Now, what if they committed the adultery only in the U.S., i.e. claim they never had sex in Korea, can they still be charged? Aha, they should use that as their defense.
Sadly, this article only further validates the point that Korea has a serious problem with infidelity. A problem that is widespread and pervasive.
Bluejives. The U.S. military’s “UCMJ” also contains provisions for charging a person with adultery. In any modern society, this should be a matter between a man and wife, i.e., grounds for divorce, alimony percentages, etc, and not a criminal matter. But of course jurisprudence and jurists tend to be among the most conservative elements of any society. Back to the military, I have seen occasions when the charge was justified (incident between a commander and a sergeant’s wife) and not made, and when it was not justified (low ranking enlisted man undergoing a long-term separation from his wife), and made. There has to be a standard of uniformity in any justice system or it loses its validity in the eyes of those subject to it.
The top 5 nations of adultery was a joke…but anyone who’s lived there long enough, knows that theres a shit load of adultery going on in Korea. Shaming and singling people is straight up a joke.
“Now, what if they committed the adultery only in the U.S., i.e. claim they never had sex in Korea, can they still be charged? Aha, they should use that as their defense.”
motion to dismiss as contradictory to the original premises of plaintiff’s charges, your honor.
pooh
if i may, is that ‘pooh’ as in ‘pooh and tigger, too’?
have you read the article? Mrs Chae charges that the guilty party has been making the double-backed beast in the philandering husband’s very own love nest in Gangnam district, Seoul.
Now, i’d readily admit that if I were in Mr Kim’s situation, i’d mostlikely would have done no better. Especially if the raison d’etre of my extramarital lust was as compelling as a former Miss Korea.
my most heartfelt sympathies goes out to former Miss Korea herself. her reputation and future is forever tainted. she is a victim of her own celebrity in a society that revels in the sordid affairs of the famous. i do not share in the carthardicism of the cynical masses.
In my case my girlfriend is married but there’s no proof that I know she is married so her husband can sue me but he shouldn’t be able to win based merely on the wife’s testimony that she told me she was married. In Korea the court will accept the woman’s testimony as truth. That’s the biggest problem with this topic in Korea. In Korea a woman can conspire with her husband to sue you even if you have not had sex with her, and they’ll win. They will have to divorce to get the money…..wow.
You have to be careful who you have a relationship with especially in these difficult economic times.
As far as this story goes, well, the woman definitely knew that the man was married and so she’s guilty and so both her ahd the husband should pay the wife compensation.
A USFK serviceman was jailed at some point in the eighties for adultry, when his Korean lover’s husband pressed charges.
And yes, one member of the married couple has to file charges for prosecutors to even have the right to get involved. Prior to that, they can’t even investigate, no matter how much they may discover in the course of investigating other things.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe adultery is a crime in the US military, and that it was one of the things the infamous Muslum chaplain Captain Yee was charged with when the the sedition or was it treason case against him fell apart.
Correct me also if I am wrong, but while adultery is not itself a crime in US civilian courts, I do seem to remember that producing evidence of your spouse’s infidelity in a divorce case can sometimes get you a better settlement and help in winning child custody. So, not quite criminal, but, it seems, nonetheless essentially judged to be inappropriate in US courts.
Suprisingly, in Korea it is usually women’s groups that are support of the adultery law, because it gives women leverage and protection in a society where a man’s infidelity was once a virtual birthright (spare me the flames - anyone with any knowledge of Chos?´n history going to tell you the same) and divorcing him for it would ruin you more than it had to. Of course women’s groups aren’t what they used to be, so while a group with a title like “Flower Arrangement & Tennis Wives’ Association” is going to support it a group called “Anti-Kitchen Apron Lesbians from Hell” obviously is not. Anyway, point is that it’s generally not hypocritically conservative old men who want the law around.
One of the highlights of the 1992 presidential campaign was that the issue actually got talked about a little. Kim Young Sam didn’t waste time denying that he has an illegitimate daughter exiled away in Japan, but he didn’t have to because no one ever challenged him on what is common knowledge for those in the know, and at KYS rally a Newsweek reporter, and American, asked the ajummas in the croud what they thought of it - and their answers were generally that he was a powerful man has sort of “earned it,’ and that because of the status his wife enjoys as his wife she probably doesn’t complain too much. Then there was Hyundai founder Chung Joo Young. At the Kwanhoon Press Club someone actually dared to get up and ask him whether it was okay to have had so many woman in his life over the years - dozens apparently - and his answer was that “you’ve never heard any of them complain, have you??” (And of course there was no public outcry, Chung campaigned to the end with no problem.) Since election laws even now prohibit you from making ‘personal attacks’ by stating the facts about your opponent(s), candiate Kim Dae Jung got up in front of a packed stadium in Busan and declared “I have only one woman!”
Adultry is also still a crime in the great state of Georgia as well. There are still a few of these laws still on the books, but they are never enforced.
“The top 5 nations of adultery was a joke?€?but anyone who?€™s lived there long enough, knows that theres a shit load of adultery going on in Korea. Shaming and singling people is straight up a joke.” - Steve
exactly my point… maybe if the adulterers were exposed (including the men), adultery would become more shameful and therefore less common. shaming and singling might make more people think twice!
or maybe adultery would become more acceptable, the law would be repealed, and most of the commentors here would be pleased.
Oranckay - Yes, they should shame/embarrass the chaebol tycoons too. im all for equality before the law, and if korea wants to be a “modern nation” equality before the law is critical. bring on the lawsuits and arrests!!!!
adultery should be illegal because it destroys the foundation of society - the family. if that by itself isnt enough for you, oh utilitarians of blogland, im sure that destroying the family causes economic damage to society.
Lothario, the issue of concern is honesty, not adultery. When honesty is no longer a virtue, many things suffer. I think that hurts any society more but then when all are human, what is one to do?
This law is seldom applied because of the shame factor. Few Koreans want to have everyone know that their husband or wife cheated on them- it is a huge shame. Not to mention the impact on the kids if there are any.
A guy I knew was sleeping with a married Korean woman (actually 3 married Korean women) and the husband found out. The husband would NEVER apply this law because of the shame that his wife cheatet on him- not to mention with a “weguk” Canadian. Most Korean men would not want this to come up in public and would rather just get a divorce citing some other reason for divorce.
Yes, boys and girls, adultery is illegal in Korea, and so is prostitution and eating dogs.
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