This article review stheories of whether we recognize the guilty spouse's claim for divorce and analyzes cases from the Supreme Court of Republic of Korea. In short, I conclude as following.
First, there have been positivism and negativism regarding to wheather we recgnize the guilty spouse's claim for divorce and, further, limitarians in principle disallow the guilty spouse's claim for divorce, but they allow his/her claim only when the guilty spouse satisfies some conditions. In my view, limitariansperspective seems the most persuasive.
Second, the Korean Supreme Court had consistently denied the claim for divorce from the guilty spouse who caused the breakdown of his/her marriage. However, the Supreme Court has restrictively permitted the guilty spouse's claim for divorce only when he/she satisfies the following three elements since mid-1980s: ① in the case of recrimination-the case when the both spouses have causes for divorce-; ② when the other spouse also wants to divorce when the guilty spouse claims for divorce; and ③ when there had already been other causes for divorce before the guilty spouse's wrong doing.
Third, as such, in principle, the Korean Supreme Court has denied the guilty spouse's claim for divorce and, at the same time, restrictively allowed his/her claim for divorce only when the guilty spouse satisfies the above three elements. This is the natural conclusion from the viewpoint that valuees on the morality of marriage. However, we need to concern that the global trend of causes for divorce changes from fault principle to breakdown principle and how we introduce and understand this trend. In other words, we could encounter with the question whether we should stick to the fault principle when the relationship of marriage itself was already broken irretrievably and remains in ruin.
Therefore, I conclude that we would better try to accept the breakdown principle that opens an opportunity to start a new life for the couple by eliminating the ruined marital relationship with the consideration of the maintenance for the spouse and children as well as the euqitable distribution of marital property.