These days, marriage has become a choice, not a must, like in the lyrics ‘Dating is a necessity, marriage is a choice’ from the song ‘Amor Fati’, and the number of singles is noticeably increasing. According to a survey by the National Statistics Office of Korea, the marriage rate is decreasing every year, and the number of marriages has been fewer than 300,000 since 2016. More and more people are choosing a non-married life on their own, so why are there so many people who choose to be single?
  Singles are people who think marriage is a choice, not a must. According to the Naver Korean Dictionary, singles are defined as people who are not married yet, but the real meaning of singles is people who choose to remain unmarried. In short, it doesn’t refer to people who aren’t married yet; it refers to people who have decided not to marry.
  CBT would like to find out why they choose to be single in detail through various statistics and interviews. First of all, the biggest reason for remaining single is the financial burden of marriage. According to a survey by Trendmonitor, 78.2 percent of respondents said, “It is impossible to marry without money these days”, which shows that people think they have to have a certain level of economic capability to get married. In addition, respondents ranked the most worrisome aspects of preparing for marriage as housing problems and marriage funds, both of which are related to a financial burden. Lee Ho-seon, a professor of Soongsil Cyber University, said, “Realistic difficulties are the biggest reasons for non-marriage. It’s a financial difficulty. First, it’s hard to get a job. Secondly, it costs too much to get married, and it is said to cost about 300 million won to raise a child. People can feel anticipatory anxiety about a marriage that hasn’t even happened yet, so they try to avoid it.” In this situation where young people have difficulty finding jobs or making their own money, marriage becomes a burden to them, so many people choose a single life over marriage.
  Next, many singles choose to be single to live a more self-satisfying life. Many people who decide not to marry are placing importance on themselves. Park Yoon-kyung, a 25-year-old office worker who was interviewed, said, “I want to make my own career in the field that I want, but if I get married, the burden of childcare and household chores would often be passed on to me. I don’t want to sacrifice my life for my family. I don’t think marriage is a must because I think it’s worth living a life for me rather than for the happiness I’d get from the life as someone’s mother or someone’s wife.” Kim Ji-hoon, a 23-year-old college student, also said, “I, as a man, also intend to choose not to marry in an effort to live freely. If I were to get married and have children, I would have less time for myself. Economically, there can be many restrictions. If I live alone, all I have to worry about is myself, but if I get married, I have to worry about my wife and children.” Many people are choosing to remain single for their own satisfaction and careers because they regard marriage as a sacrifice.
  Many singles choose non-marriage because they think it will be hard to find a spouse to satisfy them. According to a survey by Trendmonitor, 84.4 percent of respondents agreed that it is very difficult to find a spouse that satisfies them in this day and age. In fact, most singles decide to remain single because there is a high probability of spending a lot of time with their spouses as their average life expectancy increases, but they don’t have the confidence that they can meet someone who meets their expectations. More and more people are opting for a non-married life as it is difficult to find a suitable spouse for them. Meeting a spouse who satisfies them has become an important requirement, whereas, in the past, people just got married at their optimal age.
  With the number of singles surging, a new culture related to singles has recently sprung up. There are singles ceremonies and singles weddings. The singles ceremony refers to a party where they declare that they intend to live single in front of their acquaintances. The intention to receive congratulatory money through a singles ceremony is one reason, as there is no chance of getting the money back that they gifted at weddings if they don’t have a wedding ceremony. The singles wedding refers to an event where people take pictures of themselves wearing a wedding dress and makeup in order to celebrate their goal of remaining single. Staying single seems to have become a new trend as people no longer think of them as people who can’t find a spouse but as people determined and happy not to marry.
  People lived under the perception that they must get married in the past. However, recently, many people have come to think of marriage as optional and their decision to remain single as respectable. As the necessity and values of the existing marriage system are changing, non-marriage is no longer considered to be abnormal. People are choosing whether to marry or not depending on their own decisions. However, as difficulty in getting a job and financial burdens are the biggest reasons for choosing non-marriage, effective alternatives need to be considered even if the freedom not to marry is respected.

By Kim Min-ji l mj39@cbnu.ac.kr