A same-sex couple hesitates outside the hospital’s visitors’ section. Partners who live together still do not appear on the family registry. A couple that tracks household finances in spreadsheets—an “Excel couple”—is accused of being too calculating. A stay-at-home dad is asked at a community center, “Where’s the mother?” And an elderly pair faces snide remarks like, “Remarry at your age?”
The six couples and partners I interviewed for this report live in different ways, yet the social ideal of a single correct model of marriage remains powerful. While the institution of marriage is changing, critics say laws, policies and public attitudes still reflect older norms.
◆ Need for policies tailored to nontraditional households
Many people who live together are not legally recognized as family. Current housing and welfare policies are largely built around marriage or direct blood relations. As a result, nonkin households are often excluded from institutional rights such as surgical consent, succession of lease rights and survivor benefits.
Cohabiting couples who have not registered their marriage are not recognized as spouses under the civil code. They are excluded from programs like special housing allocations for newlyweds and spousal tax deductions. Official residency documents often list them merely as “cohabitants,” forcing them to repeatedly prove their relationship.
Same-sex couple Im Ah-hyun and Choi Jin-ah say they feel these limitations directly. “We’re still relatively young, so there haven’t been many situations in which we needed to act as each other’s hospital proxy,” they said. “But there are definitely moments when, even as the closest people to one another, we cannot make decisions on each other’s behalf. Because we don’t appear on the family registry, we often have to explain our relationship.”
Last year, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said in its Fourth Basic Plan for Healthy Families (2021–2025) that it would move to recognize unmarried and cohabiting relationships as families. Still, analysts say meaningful institutional change is a long way off.
Experts argue that nontraditional households already form a significant part of society, and policy must catch up. Kim Young-ran, a researcher at the Korean Women’s Development Institute, said we need to move beyond marriage- and blood-based definitions of family and instead view family through functions such as mutual care and intimacy. She added that nonkin households often form bonds beyond mere co-residence: they care for one another, rely on each other and take on guardian-like roles.
Kim emphasized that nonkin households frequently perform family-like functions grounded in alternative forms of intimacy, not just shared housing. She said policy support should be differentiated by group characteristics—size, gender composition and reasons for living together—and that tailored programs should be developed to meet those diverse needs.
◆ Diverse relationships, social scrutiny remains
Lagging institutions are not the only problem. Public attitudes toward different types of couples and families have not changed at the same pace. Stay-at-home dad Kim Jeong-hyun said, “When I take my child to a community center or hospital, people still ask, ‘Where’s the mother?’ There is still surprise when a father is the primary caregiver.”
He added that most neighborhood parent groups are organized around mothers, making it difficult for a father to join on his own. To connect with other fathers in similar situations, he started a parenting blog.
Public reaction is also mixed toward couples who meticulously record household expenses and chores—the so-called Excel couples. Online, many criticize them as cold or ask, “Aren’t they being too calculating with each other?”
Experts say generational shifts in expectations underlie some of this tension. A divorce attorney named Kim noted that where previous generations prized sacrifice and selflessness in marriage, younger generations prioritize a fair balance that prevents one partner from feeling wronged. Rather than one person silently absorbing burdens, people now try to negotiate roles and responsibilities more equitably.
Social scrutiny persists around gray-area remarriage and unmarried cohabitation. Remarks such as “At your age? Remarry?” or “Why not just get married?” reflect a lingering insistence on a single idea of a “normal family.” Experts stress that, given the already diverse forms of families and couples, society should move toward accepting those varied relationships as normal.
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