In the movie, ‘He’s Just Not That into You’, four couples appeared and they talked about their love and marriages. One couple among the four couples is Neil and Beth. They have lived together before marriage for seven years. Living together before marriage is more developed in the West, not only in terms of the legal system and social recognition, than in the East. Most Westerners live together with their lover before their marriages. On the other hand, most Easterners culturally don’t let people do that.
   In the movie, we can find the scene where Neil thinks of marriage as a grave and tries to avoid it. They don't want to marry their lover, though they want to live with their lover before marriage. Because they are in love with their lover, they live with their lover before marriage. In addition, Beth says to Neil, “Why haven't you proposed to me despite living together for seven years?” We can recognize that Western people take it for granted to marry with their lover after they live with their lover before marriage.
   On the other hand, Eastern people think negatively about living together with their lover before marriage. In the case of Korea, remaining a virgin until marriage was a virtue when they married, which had been affected by the Confucianism of the Joseon Dynasty period. Though it has become less important, this thought still remains now, so people are reluctant to reveal they are living or lived with their lover before marriage because it means that they have lost their purities.
   The bottom line is that people from different countries culturally have different thoughts about living together before marriage. If you want to live with your lover before marriage, understand your culture of living together before marriage first, and then carefully consider things that you would gain or lose by living together before marriage.
 

By Lee Jeong-hae
ljh32@cbnu.ac.kr