Prologue: A Family Script
Chapter 1: Why Can't My Daughter-in-Law Be a Man?
Chapter 2: The Absolute Formula for Marriage and Childbirth
Chapter 3: Uninvited Birth, Unauthorized Birth
Chapter 4: Are roles equally shared by gender?
Chapter 5: Sex Education: Learning Family Scripts
Chapter 6: The Family Script is Unequal
Chapter 7: The Unscripted Family
Epilogue Mafia Game

Marriage is between a man and a woman, childbirth is only between legally married couples, and a daughter-in-law is naturally a woman?
The subtle discrimination and hatred hidden in the script called family

“The daughter-in-law is a man!” This is the slogan of an advertisement on the front page of a daily newspaper opposing the broadcast of a same-sex couple appearing in a television drama.
"Family Script" begins by reflecting on this powerful phrase, which appeared in 2007 and has been passed around to this day.
What is it about a daughter-in-law that a man can't do it?
This slogan, which appeared by mentioning 'daughter-in-law', provides a clue to understanding what family means in Korean society.
Korea is no different from other countries in that it faces strong opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage, but is there any other country where the issue of "daughter-in-law" is such a central reason for opposition?

Come to think of it, our family is like a solid script.
From the moment we are born, we are expected to fulfill our roles as daughters or sons, and as we grow into adults, we take on roles such as wife and husband, mother and father, daughter-in-law and son-in-law.
But the family script is not usually revealed.
Most of the time, we consider following a set script to be normal and don't even question it.


But when cracks appear in the given script, like in the case of the 'male daughter-in-law,' we come to realize that the family we have taken for granted is a system meticulously structured according to gender.
When someone's gender changes, a daughter becomes a son, a mother becomes a father, and an older sister becomes a brother.
Not only do the titles change, but expectations also change.
This means that roles change within the family.
Fundamentally, the relationship can be confusing.
If my son marries a man, is he my daughter-in-law or my son-in-law?
The slogan “My daughter-in-law is a man!” has had such a long life in anti-gay protests, perhaps because people sympathize with this confusion.


The second story that will disturb you if you believe yourself to be 'good'.
“Sometimes the most powerful discrimination comes in the form of a kind face.”

"Family Script" traces the cracks that sexual minority issues create in existing families, revealing the family script that is deeply embedded in our lives.
Chapter 1 begins with the slogan, “The daughter-in-law is a man!” and questions what the role of the daughter-in-law is in the family script and why it is given to a woman.
The following two chapters begin with a politician's remarks linking same-sex marriage to the declining birth rate, and take a strange look at the absolute formula of marriage and childbirth, which assumes that if you get married, you should have children, and if you don't get married, you shouldn't have children.
Chapter 3 examines the brutal past of the state, which considered the birth and birth of certain people, such as the disabled, those with Hansen's disease, and children of mixed race, undesirable, and expelled and excluded those who did not fit the family script.
Chapter 4 exposes the deeply ingrained gender division of labor in families and society through the familiar notion that children must have a mother and a father, and the concern that children raised by same-sex couples will be unhappy.

The family has been regarded as a moral and normative order that governs Korean society, and as a tradition and value that must be preserved even in a rapidly changing society.
This book reveals that these family systems are ultimately closely linked to the gender hierarchy and division of labor in patriarchy, the state power that views people as labor and controls reproduction, and the family as a class and inequality.
Chapter 5 examines how the state has been disseminating rules that uphold "healthy" sexual concepts through public education to maintain the family script, and Chapter 6 examines the laws and systems that formalize and protect the family script, such as the obligation to support and the inheritance and tax systems.
Ultimately, these devices solidify the family system, which perpetuates class hierarchy and deepens social inequality.
Well then, let's think again.
For whom is our society's family script being maintained?

It's time to rewrite the family script!
To all who dream of a free and equal family

Issues related to sexual minorities, such as same-sex marriage and transgender people, are not simply issues of minority groups; they are linked to the anxiety about the social chaos that would result if these issues were acknowledged.
For example, in 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that to grant gender reassignment, applicants must be unmarried and have no minor children.
The reason is that when a person changes their gender, not only does their documents change, but the status of their spouse and children, who are also registered in the family relationship register, also changes.
In the relationship with a spouse, it is equivalent to “recognizing same-sex marriage,” and for children, the issue of the father becoming female and the mother becoming male was raised.
In other words, it meant that gender correction was only permitted as long as it did not harm the existing family script.

However, on November 24, 2022, the Supreme Court made a historic decision to partially overturn this decision from 11 years ago and change the precedent.
The problem with the family relations registry can be solved by “taking care to prevent illegal disclosure of information related to gender correction in an individual’s family relations registry to the outside world,” and if there is social discrimination and prejudice, it was viewed that “there is a duty to make legal and institutional efforts to correct the prejudice and lack of understanding of the discriminatory party.”
A small crack has appeared in the family script that Korean society has firmly maintained.


What will families of the future look like? The fact that family life is a constitutional right for everyone doesn't mean we should force people into a fixed family script.
Rather than fixing society and its institutions and adapting people's lives to them, devising institutional measures that support changing lifestyles will be the path toward a freer and more equal society.
Creating new systems and changing perceptions based on the realities and changes of diverse families is also a way for all of us to liberate ourselves from the family script.
"Family Script" asks:
Isn't it time for us to break free from the family script?