Speak Korean if you want to marry

By Jason Lim

I am no libertarian, but I always thought that choosing your spouse was a matter of personal choice.

Granted, I am not entirely sure how I feel about some individual states in the U.S. allowing marriages between cousins; but if that’s what the lovely couple want to do and are willing to risk reenacting that banjo scene from Deliverance, then all power to them. Who’s to say otherwise?

Actually, the Korean government will. Specifically, if you are a foreigner who wants to marry a Korean, then the Korean government has a lot to say.

The Korea Times recently reported that the government is putting the final touches on a new policy that would require foreign spouses to pass a Korean language test in order to be granted a marriage visa. The new policy would also require the Korean spouse to prove at least a 1.1 Million Won monthly income, which is a little less than $1,000 today. But it’s the language requirement that’s really the critical part of this policy.

So, why for the new policy? The Korea Times writes that the Ministry of Justice formulated this new policy after discussing it with Korean ambassadors, reaching, "a consensus to implement stricter language requirement as part of addressing the problem of language barrier, since it is cited as one of the major sources of social adjustment problems for migrant brides and domestic violence here.”

A few thoughts that popped into my head while reading this article.

One, the Ministry of Justice might have done better speaking with a few migrant spouses before finalizing this policy. Korean ambassadors are a knowledgeable lot, I understand, and probably better dressed, but they are also probably mostly male and not married to foreign brides. I am sure that they are regional experts on those areas that most foreign spouses come from (China and Vietnam), but they are not cross-cultural marriage experts. And if your policy is aimed at improving the lives of married couples, then ask the married couples, not diplomats.

Two, I am puzzled how a language barrier could be a major source of domestic violence. To me, it seems that domestic violence happens because (in most cases) a Korean husband beats up a foreign wife. Whatever the couple said or didn’t say beforehand in whatever language shouldn’t be an excuse. But, by implying that better language skills can lead to less domestic violence, the government, in effect, is officially validating that it’s understandable for a Korean husband to beat up his foreign wife because she doesn’t speak Korean well enough. It’s now the wife’s fault for getting beat up! She should have spoken Korean better.

Three, the Ministry inadvertently just created a whole new industry aimed at cheating on the Korean language proficiency test for foreign spouses. With this new policy, the Ministry created a barrier that the marriage brokers can use to milk more money out of couples who want to get married because this is just one more opportunity for marriage brokers to facilitate. We have enough experience with other visa brokers that we know this is sure to happen. And these are the same people that the Ministry wants to crack down on for engaging in fraud and raising false expectations. Talk about unintended consequences.

This case illustrates the common mistakes that a bureaucracy makes when formulating a new policy.

One, is this a solution looking for a problem? If the solution is better Korean language skills for foreign spouses, then what is the problem? Is the problem an unusually high rate of divorces between international couples, compared to the divorce rate between Korean couples? But if their divorce rates are similar to that of Korean couples in similar rural locations, then there really isn’t a problem. The same goes for domestic violence. Is this a particular problem for this demographic, or is it more general? Unless you have identified and proved that a specific problem exists, then you shouldn’t start formulating a policy to solve it.

Two, what is the intended result of the policy and can you measure it? If the policy is intended to make foreign brides assimilate better, then how are you going to measure cultural assimilation? And if you can’t measure it, then how do you know that your policy is working? Also, what about unintended consequences? What if your solution makes life even more difficult for foreign brides and makes them even more beholden to marriage brokers? Did you succeed then?

Statistic tells us that marriage is a 50/50 proposition for anybody, even if you speak the same language, eat the same food, and dress alike. Marriage is a risky bet no matter who you are. But it should be up to individuals to choose how he or she wants to take on that risk, not the government.

Oh, by the way, how do you think Koreans would react if the U.S. began requiring that any Korean woman who wants to marry an American needs to score in the 90th percentile on TOEFL?

My point exactly.

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C., based expert on innovation, engagement and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook/jasonlim2000 and @jasonlim2012.