Marriage vs. birth control

"How was our marriage?" "(Better) than I thought. How about you?" "Same here." So much for a conversation between a couple who is expecting their breakup overnight. However, this dry conversation does make sense when the contract expires for a "temporary couple." An extract from Kim Rye-ryung's novel "Trunk," the conversation takes place at the VIP department of a match-making company "W&L." Discrete as the name goes, this department is in charge of secretly introducing temporary spouses for single men and women. Layoff is a given penalty when a "field wife" unexpectedly gets pregnant and urges to give birth. After receiving a job offer from W&L, the main character mumbles "so now we live in a world where we can lease spouses."

According to the forecast made by Statistics Korea, the number of marriages in Korea will hover below 300,000 for the first time in four decades; 303,156 couples married in 1977 and 302,828 tied the knots last year. Over the same period, total fertility rate fell from 2.99 to 1.24. It was only three decades ago when Korea's national slogan was "1st commitment for newlyweds: planning a family in rejoices." Korea's future remains even dimmer as less and less people old enough to marry are reluctant to wed and thus fewer newborns.

In those days when the Confucian idea "a boy and a girl should not sit together after they have reached the age of seven" was considered as an ideal value in Korea, one needed a matchmaker to marry. And to move from door to door and collect information on good-looking men and women, the female merchants were in the best position to roam freely. Old woman go-between also refers to an aged female matchmaker. Professional matchmakers dubbed as "Madame Ddu" are also those who introduce sons and daughters of the rich or high-income professionals. Here, "Ddu" in Korean is an abbreviation for "Ddujaengi (marriage broker)"; a slang for a matchmaker.

Meanwhile, the Japanese central government and municipal government are pulling up their sleeves to shore up marriage and birth rates. With the goal of becoming a prefecture entirely devoted to matchmaking under the "The Knot of Love" project, Hiroshima residents increased their local birthrate from 1.34 in 2005 to 1.57 in 2015. Still, no matter how Koreans try, birthrate is far from increasing. That is why some even argue that marriage and delivery should also be included in the four national obligations; national defense, tax payment, labor and education.