An American Lion

Did you know this?

South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a decades-old law Thursday that had punished men for making false promises of marriage to engage in sex with women.

The nine-member court ruled in a 6-3 verdict that the law infringed upon women’s dignity and privacy and didn’t reflect the current social trend on sex and individualism.

The ruling said the law treated women like “infants,” and went against the government’s “constitutional obligation to aim for the equality of men and women.”

Despite the ruling, South Korea remains deeply conservative and is still influenced by a Confucian heritage after decades of Western influence. Last year, the Constitutional Court upheld a law against adultery, rejecting complaints the law is outdated and constitutes an invasion of privacy. Those convicted under the anti-adultery law face prison sentences of up to two years.

The law tossed out Thursday had punished South Korean men who deceived their girlfriends into having sex with up to a two-year prison term and a fine of more than $4,000. Enacted in 1953, the law only held men liable for false promises of marriage.

We have men in this country, and they’re called “dawgs,” and they trick women into having sex with them all the time. They promise them things like cars, that their bills will get paid, that they will get to go to Jamaica or Paris, and they do all sorts of things to get sex out of women. Sometimes, they marry them, most times, they don’t. It takes a fairly hefty ethical blind spot to promise the moon to a woman and then not marry her. In a bad economy like this, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

If there was a law against being a cheating dawg in this country, how would you enforce it? Who would do the enforcing? Would this be a matter for the civil courts? It’s probably impractical. And yet, there are so many young women out there who are having their hearts broken. Someone has to do something, so the best thing to do is pass a law no one can enforce that will treat everyone like children.