More young North Koreans are living together in common-law marriages for practical purposes rather than having wedding ceremonies and officially reporting their marriages. In North Korea, common-law marriages are forbidden, but social acceptance of them is gradually growing.
A Daily NK source in North Pyongan province said recently that “many young people in their 20s and 30s in Sinuiju live together without holding wedding ceremonies or registering marriages,” adding that nowadays, “young people don’t view common-law marriages with shame as their [social] understanding and lifestyles are completely different from their parents’ generation, with their focus more on future plans and stable lives.”
The current generation of young North Koreans shuns wedding ceremonies and registering marriages for a straightforward reason. It’s because of practical problems such as economic hardships, complicated divorce procedures and demands for bribes.
According to the source, one couple in their 30s in Sinuiju has lived together without holding a wedding ceremony or registering their marriage. The couple says they will continue living together in a common-law marriage because they believe wedding ceremonies are empty and needless pomp, while registering their marriage will bring only fatigue.
“We don’t think it’s shameful not to hold a wedding ceremony,” the couple said. “Our parents called for a wedding ceremony, even if just a hapsang ceremony, but then they asked us for the money for the ceremony.” They said they believed the fortune that would have been spent on a wedding would be much better spent elsewhere.
Investing in homes instead of ceremonies
Traditionally, in North Korea, the families of the bride and groom each hold wedding ceremonies. However, there is also the practice of hapsang, where the two families hold one wedding ceremony, splitting the costs, if they can’t afford two ceremonies. However, more young North Koreans nowadays, such as the couple in Sinuiju, omit this, opting to hold no wedding ceremony at all.
The couple in Sinuiju spent the money that would have gone into a wedding ceremony on buying a home, which they rented out to lodgers to cover their monthly living expenses. “Many practically minded young couples think as we do,” the couple said. “So, social perception of common-law couples is changing from negative to positive.”
Another benefit of common-law marriages is that they are much easier to dissolve, the couple said. “In North Korea, divorces are procedurally complicated and you can’t get one without a bribe, so to divorce, you need to endure time in a forced labor camp,” the couple said. “Because marriages may not work out, couples first live without registering their marriages so that the marriage is easy to undo.”
Common-law couples face continuous pressure from the heads of their neighborhood watch units due to residence registration issues, but they withstand the pressure so that they maintain the freedom to dissolve their relationship without legal procedures.
The North Korean authorities included divorce, early marriages and common-law marriages in their list of things young people were not supposed to do in Article 41 of the Youth Education Guarantee Act, enacted in 2021.
North Korea emphasizes strong families, viewing the family as the foundational unit of socialism. However, the authorities view common-law marriages as a major problem since many such couples choose to break up rather than work out disagreements, rendering such families unstable.
Many common-law couples with children simply split up one day. In such cases, one side often assumes the entire financial burden of childcare and living expenses because the couple was not legally married. Because of this instability, a growing number of young common-law couples are deciding not to have children.
“Common-law marriages are leading to low birth rates, but for young people nowadays, the most important things are putting food on the table and stable lives,” the source said. “The state is worried about this, too, and continues to ban common-law marriages and educate people to form ordinary marriages, but young people experiencing economic hardship don’t listen to such education.”
