졸혼 (jolhon)

If you watch Korean variety shows or the news long enough, a subtitle like this will eventually appear on screen: 저희, 졸혼했습니다. (Jeohui, jolhon-haetseumnida.) — “We’ve done jolhon.” 졸혼 (jolhon) means leaving a legal marriage exactly as it is on paper, while the two spouses agree between themselves to stop living together and each live independently. Because it isn’t a divorce, nothing about their official records changes. They still call each other 우리 남편 (uri nampyeon) and 우리 아내 (uri anae) — “my husband,” “my wife” (literally “our husband/wife”) — and they still sit side by side at their children’s weddings. It’s just that they live in different homes, decide dinner separately, and don’t report their weekend plans to each other.

The place this word actually comes up most often isn’t a news studio — it’s the holiday dinner table. Around the time the dishes have been cleared and someone starts peeling fruit, another person asks, “그 집 부부는 요즘 어떻게 지낸대?” (Geu jip bubu-neun yojeum eotteoke jinaendae?) — “So how are those two doing these days?” — and the voice drops a notch as this word comes out. And the reaction of everyone at the table splits neatly in two: “그것도 방법이지.” (Geugeot-do bangbeob-iji.) — “That’s one way to do it” — versus “그게 이혼이랑 뭐가 달라?” (Geuge ihon-irang mwoga dalla?) — “How is that any different from divorce?”

The heart of 졸혼 (jolhon) is two things: “합의 (hab-ui)” — mutual agreement — and “담담함 (damdamham)” — calm acceptance. If 이혼 (ihon) is the word for legally ending a relationship, and 별거 (byeolgeo) is the word for living apart in the middle of conflict, then 졸혼 (jolhon) is closer to two people stamping their seals on a statement like “We’ve done everything we needed to do, so now let’s each live our own life” — not to storming off after a fight. That’s why the word carries almost no temperature of resentment or collapse. If anything it’s matter-of-fact, and depending on who’s saying it, even a little proud.

So 졸혼 (jolhon) doesn’t get attached to just any couple. There are invisible conditions built into the word: the children must be fully raised, and the years spent as a married couple must be long enough. It’s typically used for couples in their fifties and beyond, after the kids have married or at least moved out. If a couple three years into marriage said they’d done 졸혼 (jolhon), listeners would tilt their heads in confusion. To call something a “graduation,” you have to have finished the whole course first.

As a verb it’s 졸혼하다 (jolhon-hada), and when you want to give it more weight, 졸혼을 선언하다 (jolhon-eul seoneon-hada) — “to declare jolhon.” Life after 졸혼 (jolhon) is 졸혼 생활 (jolhon saenghwal). Since it usually comes up when talking about one’s elders, you’ll frequently hear the honorific form 졸혼하시다 (jolhon-hasida) as well.

A Real Conversation

Setting: The afternoon of Chuseok. The table has been cleared and they’re washing dishes in the kitchen. Out in the living room, the older relatives are watching TV.

Jun-kyung: 아까 큰이모가 그러시더라. 이모부랑 졸혼하기로 했대. Aunt just told me. She and her husband have decided on jolhon.

Emily: 어? 두 분 이혼하시는 거야? Huh? Are they getting divorced?

Jun-kyung: 아니, 이혼은 아니고. 서류는 그대로 두고 그냥 따로 사는 거야. No, not divorce. They keep the paperwork as is and just live apart.

Emily: 아… 그럼 사이가 나빠지신 건 아니고? Ah… so it’s not that they had a falling out?

Jun-kyung: 오히려 반대야. 이모는 제주도에 방 얻어서 그림 배우신대. 신나 죽으려고 하시더라. Actually the opposite. She got a place in Jeju to study painting. She looked thrilled.

Emily: 와, 멋있다. 근데 할머니는 아셔? Wow, that’s cool. But does Grandma know?

Jun-kyung: 아직 말도 못 꺼냈지. 어른들 앞에서 졸혼 얘기 꺼내면 바로 분위기 싸해져. She hasn’t even brought it up. Say the word jolhon in front of the elders and the room goes cold instantly.

Where This Sounds Off

✗ (Two years into a marriage, mid-argument) 됐어, 우리 그냥 졸혼하자. (Dwaesseo, uri geunyang jolhon-haja.) — “Forget it, let’s just do jolhon.” ✓ (Two years into a marriage, mid-argument) 우리 좀 떨어져서 생각할 시간 갖자. (Uri jom tteoreojyeoseo saenggak-hal sigan gatja.) — “Let’s take some time apart to think.” → 졸혼 (jolhon) is a word for a long-married couple who have made peace with things and agreed calmly. Thrown out in anger by newlyweds, it lands colder than “let’s get divorced.” The other person hears it as: “You’ve already written me off completely.”

✗ (Said directly to your parents) 아버지, 어머니, 두 분도 이제 졸혼하시는 게 어때요? (Abeoji, eomeoni, du bun-do ije jolhon-hasineun ge eottaeyo?) — “Dad, Mom, how about the two of you do jolhon now?” ✓ (Said directly to your parents) 어머니도 이제 어머니 시간 좀 가지셨으면 좋겠어요. (Eomeoni-do ije eomeoni sigan jom gajisyeosseumyeon jokesseoyo.) — “Mom, I’d love for you to have some time for yourself now.” → No matter how kindly you mean it, when a child brings it up first, it sounds like a notice: “You two can stop living together now.” 졸혼 (jolhon) is a word the people in the marriage bring up themselves — not one you recommend from the sidelines.

Example Sentences by Situation

1) Passing along news about a relative at a holiday gathering

큰이모는 이모부랑 졸혼하시고 지금 제주도에서 그림 배우셔. (Keun-imo-neun imobu-rang jolhon-hasigo jigeum Jeju-do-eseo geurim baeusyeo.) My aunt did jolhon with my uncle and she’s learning painting in Jeju now.

This is the single most common setting for the word. Tacking on what the person is doing now — “그림 배우셔 (geurim baeusyeo)” (she’s learning painting), “등산 다니셔 (deungsan danisyeo)” (he’s out hiking) — is the natural Korean flow. Because the emphasis of 졸혼 (jolhon) is on “something newly begun” rather than “something ended,” listeners will automatically imagine bad news if you don’t add an update.

2) Describing the trend in news or an article

자녀를 모두 출가시킨 뒤 졸혼을 선택하는 중년 부부가 늘고 있다. (Janyeo-reul modu chulga-sikin dwi jolhon-eul seontaek-haneun jungnyeon bubu-ga neulgo itda.) More middle-aged couples are choosing jolhon after all their children have left home.

This is the formal register used in broadcasting and newspapers. Keeping it as a noun and attaching a verb — 졸혼을 선택하다 (jolhon-eul seontaek-hada) “to choose jolhon,” 졸혼을 선언하다 (jolhon-eul seoneon-hada) “to declare jolhon” — shifts the tone from one person’s story to a social phenomenon. This is the form learners will encounter most often when reading Korean articles.

3) Half-joking among friends

나 애들 대학만 보내 놓고 졸혼할 거야. 진짜로. (Na aedeul daehak-man bonae noko jolhon-hal geoya. Jinjjaro.) Once I get the kids into college, I’m doing jolhon. Seriously.

This is the kind of line that comes out with a laugh at a get-together of friends in their forties and up. It’s a joke with about thirty percent real feeling mixed in, so the listener fires back with something like “야, 너만 그러냐.” (Ya, neoman geureonya.) — “Hey, you think you’re the only one?” One caveat: this joke only works among peers. Say it in front of a spouse, or in front of your in-laws, and it stops being a joke.

The casual form is 졸혼했어 (jolhon-haesseo) and the polite forms are 졸혼했어요 / 졸혼했습니다 (jolhon-haesseoyo / jolhon-haetseumnida) — a perfectly regular pattern. But since you’re usually talking about something an elder has done, you’ll far more often meet forms with the subject-honorific -시- (-si-) attached: 졸혼하셨대 (jolhon-hasyeotdae) “I heard they did jolhon,” 졸혼하셨다고 들었어요 (jolhon-hasyeotdago deureosseoyo) “I heard that they did jolhon.”

You could say the whole word comes down to the differences in temperature between the expressions that look similar to it.

Expression	Temperature / Intensity	Where It’s Used
졸혼 (jolhon)	Mutually agreed, calm, even upbeat	Couples past middle age whose kids are grown. News, variety shows, family gossip
별거 (byeolgeo)	Heavy and negative, conflict underneath	The stage before divorce. Spoken carefully, in a lowered voice
이혼 (ihon)	Legal termination; the most decisive	Paperwork, law, official settings
각방 쓰다 (gakbang sseuda)	Light and everyday; can even be a joke	Same house, separate bedrooms. Used even just because someone snores
황혼 이혼 (hwanghon ihon)	Heavy and final	An actual divorce late in life. Frequently contrasted with jolhon

Even though both mean “living apart,” 별거 (byeolgeo) is separating because there’s a problem, while 졸혼 (jolhon) is separating having finished with the problems. Remember that one line and you’ll never mix the two up.

Cultural Background — What If Marriage Had a Graduation Ceremony?

졸혼 (jolhon) is not an old word. Written in hanja it’s 卒婚 — the 졸 (jol) of 졸업 (卒業, jol-eop), “graduation,” plus the 혼 (hon) of 결혼 (結婚, gyeolhon), “marriage.” The idea is that just as you graduate when you finish school, you can also graduate from marriage once you’ve completed the required course. The coinage came over from the Japanese 卒婚 (そつこん, sotsukon), and in Korea it began spreading widely in the mid-2010s as it appeared on television. In particular, after actor Baek Il-seob revealed in 2017 on the variety program 《아빠본색》 (Appa Bonsaek, TV Chosun) that he was living in a state of 졸혼 (jolhon), the word sat in portal search rankings for days.

So why did this word take hold so fast in Korea? There are two pressures behind it. One is longer life expectancy: even after raising all the children, a couple still has more than thirty years ahead of them. The other is the judgment that still clings to divorce — the children’s marriages, what the relatives will say, how one’s own parents will react. The moment you legally split, there’s simply too much to bear. 졸혼 (jolhon) is the narrow path that opened up in between: keeping the form of the relationship intact while each person takes the substance of daily life for themselves.

That’s why the word always comes trailing debate behind it. There’s the criticism that it’s “just a separation dressed up prettily,” the observation that it’s “a story only possible if you have money,” and above all the point that “in most cases it’s the wife who brings it up first.” In fact, the people who talk about 졸혼 (jolhon) on television are often women in their sixties who spent their whole lives handling the housework and the child-rearing. For them, 졸혼 (jolhon) isn’t the failure of a marriage — it’s the beginning of the time for themselves that they kept putting off.

In Korean dramas and variety shows, this subject is usually portrayed from the children’s point of view. A grown child hears the news of their parents’ 졸혼 (jolhon) and gets angry at first; then they visit their parent’s home and see their father’s back as he sets out a meal for himself alone, or their mother holding a community-center class card with her own name on it for the first time — and they quietly step back. Learn this word, and in that scene you’ll be able to read why the air changes, even without the subtitles.

Today’s Quiz

Which of the following uses 졸혼 (jolhon) most naturally?

① 저희 부부는 지난달에 졸혼해서 서류 정리를 다 끝냈어요. (Jeohui bubu-neun jinandal-e jolhon-haeseo seoryu jeongni-reul da kkeunnaesseoyo.) “My spouse and I did jolhon last month and finished sorting out all the paperwork.”

② 큰이모는 이모부와 졸혼하시고 제주도에서 그림을 배우신다. (Keun-imo-neun imobu-wa jolhon-hasigo Jeju-do-eseo geurim-eul baeusinda.) “My aunt did jolhon with my uncle and is learning painting in Jeju.”

③ 어제 남자친구랑 크게 싸워서 그냥 졸혼했어. (Eoje namjachingu-rang keuge ssawoseo geunyang jolhon-haesseo.) “I had a big fight with my boyfriend yesterday, so I just did jolhon.”

Show the answer

Answer: ②

① trips over “서류 정리 (seoryu jeongni)” — sorting out the paperwork. 졸혼 (jolhon) is an agreement with no legal procedure, so there’s no paperwork to sort out. If paperwork was filed, that’s 이혼 (ihon). ③ isn’t about a married couple in the first place. 졸혼 (jolhon) is only used for people in a marriage. For a dating couple, 헤어졌어 (heeojyeosseo) — “we broke up” — is the right word. ② has everything: a long-married couple, mutual agreement, and the new life that started afterward. It’s the most textbook use of the word.

Definitions and example sentences are from the National Institute of Korean Language’s Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr); that portion of this post, including our translations, is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 KR.