Select four Japanese and Korean dramas that "flip the concept of marriage" and rethink "the essence of marriage" together.

Is marriage an obligation? At marriageable age, whether you have a partner or not, you may have heard such a concern: why don't you get married? Is it too picky? You may think, you just don't want to be bound by the marriage system, or you just don't want to marry a man just to get married.

We often unconsciously fall into the collective "marriage anxiety", as if we must get married, and finding a partner is the right way of life. ? But do you really want to find someone to marry? Or are you just worried that you are not good enough and nobody loves you? If you don't understand the necessity of getting married first, then getting married will not be the answer to anxiety.

Editor VidaOrange selected four Korean dramas and Japanese dramas to discuss the marriage system and redefine and think about marriage together.

1. "This life is the first time" Image source: "This life is the first time" stills.

"As before, I got married because I was in love.

Were those people born with golden spoons? Just held a ceremony,

Now we just,

Do something for an ordinary life. 」

The story of "this life is the first time" begins with a "contract marriage". A 30-year-old woman, Yin Zhihao, has a single mother who wants to own her own house, but she is still far from her goal. Nan Xishi, a 38-year-old man, is a mortgage slave for 30 years. He is an unmarried man and indifferent to worldly feelings. Yin Zhihao and Nan mistakenly started a contractual marriage relationship as "tenants' landlords".

The main characters of this drama are mainly young people from the 88th generation in Korea (1988). They have experienced the most glorious period in South Korea, and also suffered the most depressed period in South Korea. This drama not only challenges South Korea's marriage concept and patriarchal culture, but also realistically describes the plight of young people in South Korea. One can't afford a house, but the other has become a house slave. At this time, marriage is not based on love for them, but on practical considerations.

Gary becker, a sociologist, said: "When the expected income from marriage is greater than that from being single, people will choose to get married! 」

?

Image source: "The First Time in My Life" stills.

Is it necessary to get married? Is getting married because of love? For the first time in my life, these views have been repeatedly challenged. Although the hero and heroine eventually sublimated their friendship into love because of this contract marriage, they also challenged the necessity of marriage in the end.

When people equate marriage with love, what does the screenwriter of This Life want to tell the audience for the first time? "In front of marriage, love is more sacred! 」 ? Marriage is simple and difficult, but without love, isn't marriage a contract? Don't let the word marriage limit and define your love.

2. "Yueyue" Image source: "Yueyue" stills.

Is the essence of marriage love?

The same is true of the topic of "contract marriage". The Japanese drama "The Wife with a Monthly Salary" tells this story easily and interestingly, and the main axis is also around the value of women after marriage. The hero and heroine in The Wife with a Monthly Salary have no emotional foundation, and only regard marriage as a fair cooperative contract in life and income.

Image source: "Monthly Salary Wife" stills.

This ridiculous contract marriage, to some extent, also takes us to examine the "nature of marriage." Is marriage equal to the happy ending of love? Or is it just a contract? Just as the mainstream values think that marriage is the expression of true love and the symbol of love's blossom and fruit, the rational dialogue between the hero and heroine is repeatedly used in The Wife with a Monthly Salary, which makes us clear that marriage is a contract, and you can choose to sign it or not.

For example, the heroine Meili mistakenly went to the hero Pingkuang's house to be a cleaning housekeeper. When the hero Ping Kuang needed to find a new job because of being laid off by the company, she asked Meili to be naturalized as a formal husband and wife, which made Meili feel that marriage was just a means: she could reasonably use her own means of being a housewife without paying her salary, so Meili responded like this:

"I think as long as we like each other and have love, we can get anything we want, which is simply the exploitation of love. I, Miki Moriyama, resolutely oppose it! 」

Discussions such as the exploitation of love in marriage, women's domestic service, the plight of married women in Japan, and their contributions are taken for granted. When it was first aired, it dropped a shocking bomb on Japan, which is conservative and patriarchal, and brought relevant discussions.