I saw the article, a stub in my daily paper, so I went online for more information. South Korea has changed its laws and no longer will adulterers face criminal charges. Those found guilty could have been sentenced to up to two years in prison.

I have mixed feelings about the state getting involved in the private lives of individuals. Canada did away with laws about adultery years ago, though I suppose there may still be civil suits occasionally for alienation of affection. For the most part I think the state has no business in people’s private lives. Should it therefore be in the marriage business at all? (I know studies have been done showing that marriage is beneficial to society, but it doesn’t hurt to ask the question – and the state is not the society.)

In some ways I had no problem with the old Korean law – and nearly 1,000 people were charged under it last year. Marriage should be something taken seriously. If marriage is to be a state-sanctioned contract it would seem that some sort of contract law would apply, though I’m not sure about criminal penalties. I’m not sure what penalties, civil or criminal wouldn’t also hurt the aggrieved party, assuming the goal was to preserve the marriage not to destroy it.

So what role does the state play in the private lives of individuals? We do after all accept as normal that the state tells us when we are old enough to receive a public education, old enough to drive, to vote or serve in the military. These are things that theoretically each of us could make a decision about.

What the state does for us, what we want the state to do, varies from place to place. Canadians have had a national socialized medicare system since 1964; a couple of generations have grown up with it, and it works pretty well. The United States, to the south of us, just introduced a form of medicare that falls far short of the Canadian system. I think the American people were failed by their politicians on that one, but supposedly they didn’t want to state to be as intrusive as it is here. (I could argue that it is big business that drives the American agenda, not the state. But I would be wrong, wouldn’t I?)

Increasingly it seems, the state interferes in our lives. There are laws that make sense and laws that don’t make sense. What the Koreans have asked and answered is what role the state should have in legislating what are essentially moral issues. Or is adultery a moral issue? Can you “divorce” the moral aspects from the question and concentrate on whether the state wishes to support marriages? If so, how?