Boston College Global Korea Project Presents...

Event Description

The criminalization of adultery has a long history. It was in the twentieth century that many countries began decriminalizing adultery based on principles such as gender equality, privacy, and sexual autonomy. In contrast, South Korea maintained its adultery law until 2015, when the Constitutional Court declared the sixty-two-year-old law unconstitutional. South Korea diverged from the global trend when its National Assembly enacted a gender-neutral adultery law in 1953. This presentation explores South Korea’s adultery law to examine why it took this different path, demonstrating how the principle of gender equality in marriage—enshrined in Article 20 of the 1948 Founding Constitution—shaped the criminalization of adultery in postcolonial Korea.

Dr. Jisoo Kim

Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University & Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellow

Sponsors and Co-Sponsors

This event is sponsored by Boston College Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office, Institute for the Liberal Arts, and Women's and Gender Studies Program, and is co-sponsored by the International Studies Program, Asian Studies Program, Department of Eastern, Slavic, and German Studies, and the History Department.