Process of Cross-border Marriage and Marital Satisfaction: Cases of Korean Men and Foreign Wives

The advancement of information and transportation technologies in the context of economic and cultural globalization facilitates international marriages. However, it is ironic that image and fantasies play a significant role in the actual process of these marriages. Using data from a national survey conducted in 2006 (Survey for the Conjugal Life of the International Marriage Families) this study examines the experiences of Korean men and foreign wives. The findings confirm the negative impacts on marital satisfaction of the spousal image of hypergamy (i.e., imaginings of a high-earning husband and a submissive wife) and abbreviated marriage processes (i.e., broker-mediated marriage and incorrect information about a future spouse), but the detailed patterns differ by gender and by the ethnic origin of the wife. Korean Chinese (and to a lesser extent Han Chinese) wives are more negatively affected by the marriage process and spousal imaginings than are Southeast Asians and 'other' wives. While Southeast Asian wives are more likely to have received incorrect information about their husbands, they show significantly more flexible attitudes toward the marriage and spouses. Unification Church members are excluded from the analysis because their marital lives are distinctive enough to warrant separate research. As previous qualitative findings suggested, some Korean Chinese wives seem to perceive that returnees to the home country deserve an improvement in economic status as opposed to the disappointing reality. Imagining a submissive wife hurts the marital satisfaction of husbands regardless of the ethnic origin of the wife.