After the abolition of adultery in South Korea, the rapid growth of Ashley Madison, a site that arranges affairs between married people, has sparked social controversy. It’s worth reflecting on the impact of infidelity on our society’s values and perceptions of marriage.
In South Korea, on February 26, 2015, the Constitutional Court ruled by a 7-2 vote of nine judges that Article 241(1) of the Penal Code, commonly known as adultery, which states, “If a person who has a spouse commits adultery, he or she shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than two years, and the same applies to the person who commits adultery with him or her,” is unconstitutional. The court cited changing times, including a shift in public perception of privacy and a more open sexuality, as the basis for its decision.
The site Ashley Madison has become a hot-button issue. Ashley Madison, which entices users with the phrase “Life is short, have an affair,” is a Canadian-based online dating site that arranges meetings between married people. The site was previously blocked by South Korea’s South Korean Communications Commission, but it has reappeared in South Korea after the country’s adultery law was struck down as unconstitutional, sparking controversy.
It’s no wonder that Ashley Madison is viewed with less than favorable eyes in South Korea, where Confucianism is deeply entrenched in society. If you talk to people around you about the site or check social media, you will find that many Koreans are uncomfortable with it. The government has also taken several actions that reflect this sentiment. Since the abolition of the adultery law, several lawmakers have introduced related bills, and the National Assembly is in the process of amending the law to compensate.
But here’s something interesting. Before the abolition of adultery, the site recruited tens of thousands of members in Korea in a short period of time as soon as it entered the market, and the number of members has skyrocketed since the abolition of adultery. This shows that there are many South Koreans who are inherently positive about the site’s presence in the country, which is contrary to universal public sentiment. In fact, the nonprofit organization OpenNet released a statement titled “Should Ashley Madison be banned?” to stop the government and parliament from blocking her.
So why do people sign up for this site? The answer is self-evident. Ashley Madison arranges private meetings between married people, for which members pay a certain amount of money. In other words, people use the site because they want to have an affair, a sexual encounter with someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse. There are more of these people than you might think, and the number is growing, but why?
In the modern world, while there are differences in the way things are done in different countries, in general, a man and a woman who are unrelated to each other enter into a marriage and take vows to leave their home and create a new family. The primary motivation for marriage is to engage in legitimate, loving sexual intercourse to create a family and procreate offspring. These are the most basic values of marriage.
Infidelity goes against these basic values of marriage, which is why it’s almost taboo in our society. Surprisingly, it’s more common than you might think. According to a survey conducted by a research institute in South Korea among married women aged 24 to 35, a whopping 43.3 percent answered “yes” to the question, “Do you have a lover besides your husband?” A master’s thesis by Sungkyunkwan University’s Department of Family Management, “A Study on Extramarital Relationships among Married Men and Women,” surveyed 196 women in Seoul and Gyeonggi and found that 40.3 percent of married women have had extramarital relationships in the past or present.
In the meantime, a very quick shortcut has emerged: Ashley Madison. The site is accessible to everyone, and it’s easy to get in touch with multiple people, as members can share information with each other and choose their favorite matches. These advantages are why more and more people are turning to these sites to find an affair.
But why do people leave their spouses for other people? There are many reasons why people have affairs, but at its core, it’s because they feel neglected in their relationship with their spouse. Over the course of a relationship, you forget what it was like to be passionately in love, your emotions become dulled, and you naturally crave companionship from other people. In other words, by having an affair, you’re trying to fulfill a need that you can’t get from your spouse.
So, in the end, does having an affair really provide any psychological value? In other words, do people who sign up for these sites really get the psychological value they deserve? I have a negative answer to this question. When you get hit by a rock and break a bone, taking painkillers to numb the pain is not a cure. In other words, having an affair because you are driven by your immediate desires will only lead to a physical relationship that is limited to the pursuit of pleasure and is not a solution. It can only lead to the destruction of a precious family.
Therefore, it’s important that we have the right values when it comes to affairs. Ashley Madison is a harmful site that promotes affairs under the dangerous guise of “healthy infidelity,” luring people into one-dimensional desires and taking money out of their wallets. I don’t want my readers to be misled by these low-life sites. I want everyone to have a mature relationship with their spouse that doesn’t betray the fundamental values of our society, our values about sex, and our values about marriage.
