In South Korea, thou can now commit adultery

After a decades of battling a controversial law banning extra-marital sex, a South Korean constitutional court finally legalised adultery on Thursday.

Until the ruling, South Korea was one of the few non-Muslim countries to regard marital infidelity as a criminal act.

In its judgement, the nine-member bench, which ruled by seven to two, struck down a 60-year-old statute outlawing adultery under which violators faced up to two years in prison.

It is the fifth time since 1990 that the constitutional court has tried to overturn the ban. All other attempts failed to secure the six votes needed.

“Even if adultery should be condemned as immoral, state power should not intervene in individual private lives,” Park Han-Chul, the presiding justice, said.

“Public conceptions of individuals’ rights in their sexual lives have undergone changes.”

Official figures provided by the court showed that in the last six years, close to 5,500 people have been formerly arraigned on adultery charges — including nearly 900 in 2014 alone.

The anti-adultery law was used as an attempt to protect the rights of women after marriage, adding to their few legal rights, with most having no independent income and divorce carrying enormous social stigma.

But the law became increasingly unpopular as South Korean culture rapidly modernised in recent decades.

This was shown in the report of the state prosecution council where 216 people were jailed under the law in 2004, dropped to 42 by 2008, and since then only 22 have being found guilty.

After Thursday’s ruling, the stock price of Unidus Corp, South Korea’s biggest condom maker,  exceeded the daily limit of 15 percent.