Time to value virtues of moderation, frugality

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Editorial: South Korea had long been a Confucian society that respected family values. People attached great importance to four major ceremonies ― coming of age, wedding, funeral and ancestral rites. It was common to observe such occasions in a moderate and frugal way not only because Koreans were poor but because they opted for a frugal lifestyle.

Now, things have changed, especially with regard to weddings. More and more couples prefer big-budget nuptial ceremonies. Wedding extravagance has become a social malady since the government lifted a decades-old ban on weddings at luxury hotels in 1999. The lifting was inevitable as the authorities could no longer control people’s private lives in a democratic society.

The problem is not the deregulation but people’s way of thinking. Many tend to consider a wedding as a means of showing off their wealth, power and status. Young couples are increasingly forced to accept their parents’ insistence on bigger and costlier formalities.

Unfortunately, this practice denigrates the true meaning of a wedding. Luxurious ceremonies cannot guarantee conjugal success. Rather, they may help new couples believe that money talks.

Yet, a majority of people are not spendthrifts who can afford luxurious weddings. Some well-to-do businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians are to blame. They often hold weddings for their sons and daughters at top-notch hotels, spending well over 100 million won ($89,000) in many cases. They don’t even hesitate to pay over 20 million won for a bouquet, not to mention high-price wedding gowns and sumptuous meals.

What’s serious is that luxurious weddings could be a source of corruption among officials, politicians, bankers and businessmen, many of whom accept generous cash donations from umbrella organizations and subcontractors.

For this reason, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Right Commission has decided to root out wedding-related corruption by encouraging civil servants to have frugal weddings for their children. It plans to give higher evaluation points to government ministries, public organizations and state enterprises whose employees and their children hold low-budget, log-profile weddings at churches or town halls. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will also launch a campaign to cut wedding costs.

We welcome the move. The authorities need to do more to change people’s thinking and create a new culture for weddings. Around 400,000 couples marry every year with the total weddings bill amounting to 12 trillion won. The average cost for each couple stands at 30 million won. It’s a heavy burden for middle- and low-income families.

Every member of our society should join efforts to prevent extravagance from finding its way into weddings. The rich and powerful must take on the campaign against empty formalities and vanity. It is also required to drastically reduce dowries and phase out the practice of cash donations. Act now before it’s too late as old habits die hard. <Korea Times>

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