By Lee Hyo-sik
A court ruled Thursday against a doctor seeking a dowry from his wife’s family while also filing to divorce her. The Seoul High Court called the doctor’s behavior “indecent,” “shameless,” and that he broke basic social etiquette in human relations.
According to the court, the doctor in his 30s met his wife through a marriage broker in 2005. The bride’s father told the doctor that if he marries his daughter, he would give him 500 million won ($450,000) in cash and an apartment worth 500 million won. The father even wrote and signed a note promising him a 1-billion-won dowry.
In 2006, the two married and the bride’s family spent 240 million won to pay for wedding gifts for the groom’s family, a honeymoon trip and a sedan. But the bride’s father could not buy his son-in-law an apartment nor give him the rest of the promised money after failing to receive money from a buyer of his real estate properties.
After the marriage, the doctor did not give his wife living expenses and refused to have sex with her. He then began cheating on her by dating women he used to see before the marriage. Nine months later, the doctor asked his wife to divorce him. But the wife and her family refused to do so.
In 2008, he filed a divorce suit with the Seoul Family Court. The two lower courts and the Supreme Court all rejected his claim for divorce, saying the husband was responsible for the breakup.
The doctor then filed a separate lawsuit last year against the wife’s family, seeking a 1-billion-won dowry.
“It is socially undesirable that a bride’s father wrote a note promising money and a house to his son-in-law in an attempt to financially support the newly-married and help them maintain a successful marriage. But it is socially understandable and legally valid to a certain extent,” the Seoul High Court said in a ruling.
But the court deemed it as unlawful for the husband to demand the wife’s family fulfill the dowry promise when he cheated on his wife by having affairs with other women and demanding a divorce.
“It is clearly unscrupulous behavior, which broke even the basic social norms concerning marriage and divorce. For that, his petition for a dowry payment is rejected,”the presiding judge said.