부부재산약정제도의 활성화 방안

The matrimonial regime may be either legal or contractual in the Korea Civil Code. If a couple does not wish to follow the legal regime, the spouses may enter a prenuptial agreement which modifies the legal matrimonial regime according to principle of private autonomy. Prenuptial agreement is an agreement between prospective spouses made in contemplation of marriage to be effective upon marriage that fixes the respective financial rights and obligations during marital life. However, even though prenuptial agreement is prescribed in the Korea Civil Code, prenuptial agreements are not used actively. Under the Korea Civil Code, the one who has the legal title is assumed to have the lawful ownership of property. The person in whose name the registration is made has the legal rights to sell assets without the other spouse's consent(the separate property system). Unfairly, domestic labor also is underestimated when the couple gets divorced. Thus, the legal matrimonial regime exposures problems that do not fulfill the spouse's financial equality. The success of marriage may depend on how spouses communicate about money matters. Prenuptial agreement allows couples to write a 'road map' that structures their finances according to the mutually predetermined plan. Also, prenuptial agreement may be an appropriate device for compensating the defect of the legal matrimonial regime. Moreover, the prevalence of divorce and remarriage has prompted couples to plan more carefully, realistically, and independently for their economic futures. The first step for vitalizing the prenuptial agreement is an active promotion and reforming realistic regulations on prenuptial agreement. In other words, for the vitalization of the prenuptial agreement system, we should form the social consensus on prenuptial agreement through actively promoting prenuptial agreement. We should also exert great efforts for the revision of Korea Civil Code provision related to prenuptial agreements through a systematic survey and study, because the current prenuptial agreement system is too poor in substance to vitalize prenuptial agreement as a good alternative to the legal matrimonial regime. Thus, this thesis illustrates criticism of the current prenuptial agreement system and also lays out some possible suggestions for vitalizing the prenuptial agreement.