hankyoreh

A placard seeking signatures in support of a bill tentatively called the Partner Registration Act in front of the main gate of the university

“Why can’t a friend or partner become a legal family member? Why isn’t there some other family institution other than marriage?”

On Oct. 27 and 28, members of Full House, a group that is affiliated with the law school at Ewha Womans University, were asking this question and collecting signatures in support of a bill tentatively called the Partner Registration Act in front of the main gate of the university, in Seoul’s Seodaemun District.

In a written interview with the Hankyoreh on Nov. 7, Full House explained that the law would make it possible to register as family any “partner” with whom one wants to share a home and livelihood based on affinity, and irrespective of gender or sexual relationship. Full House members argue that a new law is needed for those who are unable to become family members under the current system -- including people living alone who want to look after each other, elderly people who are in a long-term care relationship, cohabitating couples in long-term relationships, divorced individuals who have remarried without filing their paperwork, LGBT couples and communes. So far, around 1,100 people have signed the petition both online and off.

Since Full House was selected to take part in a public interest and human rights program with the Dongcheon Foundation in May, the group has been promoting this proposed legislation in various ways, including by collecting signatures.

In the interview, Full House emphasized that they had planned this petition because of “how far off family laws are from reality.” The group argues that married couples are only one of several types of families out there, but these other families have no legal standing and thus are deprived of various benefits, in areas including housing, insurance, employment, medical services, financial services and welfare.

According to a survey of households released by Statistics Korea in 2015, single-person households were the most common type of household, accounting for 27.2% of the total. Two-person households made up 26.1% of the total, three-person households made up 21.5% and four-person households (considered the norm for traditional families) made up 18.8%. Statistics Korea had originally predicted that single-person households would become the most common family type in 2020, but this occurred more quickly than expected.

“People living alone or cohabitating complain of numerous economic inconveniences. Since people living together are still legally classified as single-person households, they are pushed back to the end of the line when they apply for public housing or for ‘key money’ housing loans. We also receive a lot of complaints about inheritance issues,” said Choi Won-jin, an activist with Womenlink.

In a paper about long-term household trends released in 2012, Statistics Korea estimated that the number of households in which people live with people who are not their blood relations would increase from 205,000 households in 2010 to 225,000 households in 2035. While experts believe that a significant number of people classified as living in single-person households are in fact living with someone else in a mutually caring relationship, there are no available statistics for this.

The Partner Registration Act is nearly identical to the Life Partner Act that was drafted by opposition Minjoo Party lawmaker Jin Seon-mi in Oct. 2014. The bill is mainly designed so that members of cohabitating families that are not joined by blood or by marriage can receive the same legal protection as people in legally recognized families. In addition to family rights, the act would also impose duties: the responsibility to care for family members and joint responsibility for financial obligations incurred on behalf of the family. One provision in the Partner Registration Act that did not appear in the Life Partner Act is joint adoption.

These bills are based on the fact that families today are diverging from the customary model of men and women in a sexual relationship who get married and raise their own children. They reflect the fact that it is becoming more difficult for a rigid legal category to be applied to increasing diverse family relationships.

When the Life Partner Act was announced, it attracted notice since it was at the intersection of several family issues, including the growing number of single-person households, the decreasing marriage rate, the increasing age at which people are getting married, the low birthrate, the aging society, and debate about how to interpret the pursuit of happiness for LGBT people. Four debates were held about the act, which was unusual for legislation in an initial draft. Jin said that the purpose of the legislation was to “guarantee that everyone has the right to have a special person to spend their life with, which is in keeping with our constitutional right to pursue happiness.”

The prevailing view in the field of family studies is that the only way to guarantee a healthy society and a sense of belonging is by giving legal recognition to several kinds of partner relationships.

“In terms of family psychology, families are much more stable when they are part of an institution. With greater trust comes a higher level of commitment. Healthy behavior by individuals and society is starting to have a small effect on institutional stability, but to some extent the institution of the family has been slow to adapt to rapid changes in family types,” said Park Woo-cheol, a professor of child development and family studies at Duksung Women's University.

“Even though we are clearly seeing the appearance of a new unmarried life cycle, the government’s family support programs are still focused on marriage,” Park said.

The petition for the Partner Registration Bill fits into a tendency to regard self-determination as the decisive factor in guaranteeing the right to pursue happiness. Recently, feminist groups have been calling for the legalization of abortion, and the hashtag “my womb, my choice” has been spreading on social media.

“Self-determination, which is the context for the push to legalize abortion, means protecting our sexual rights. In the same way, the question of whom we live with and form a family with is a matter of privacy and self-determination, and these are rights that should not be infringed upon,” said Lee Na-young, a professor of sociology at Chung-Ang University.

The Partner Registration Act was inspired by European examples. It represents a kind of civil union, a system that permits the establishment of alternative families formed for reasons other than blood and marriage, recognizes the legal force of such families, enables their registration and guarantees the same rights and duties that are provided to people in legal married relationships. On Oct. 1, 1989, Denmark became the first country in the world to legalize such partnerships. Currently, there are more than 20 countries around the world (not only in Europe) that recognize civil unions either in whole or in part.

Full House is planning to submit the signatures it collects to the National Assembly’s Gender Equality and Family Committee by the end of the year. “We’re planning to work on the cohabitation bill and give it a broader scope so that we can resubmit it” [to the National Assembly], said a source at the office of Rep. Jin Seon-mi.

In July, Rep. Na Kyung-won, a lawmaker with the Saenuri Party and head of the National Committee’s Special Action Committee on the Low Birthrate and the Aging Society, promised to push for a policy of actively embracing children born out of wedlock. The point of this policy would be for children who are born to couples who are cohabitating to receive the same welfare as children who are born to legally married couples.

By Seok Jin-hee, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]