> In Japan that's the default. Wife takes care of the budget and gives a monthly "allowance" to the husband. That sounds familiar. When I worked in Seoul at a

> In Japan that's the default. Wife takes care of the budget and gives a monthly "allowance" to the husband. That sounds familiar. When I worked in Seoul at a Korean company, the smaller unscheduled bonuses were rewarded in cash. That way the husbands who so desired could go to hostess clubs and room salons on their own dime without the knowledge of their wives, who held the purse strings. There are plenty of apparent paradoxes like this in Korean society. As a generalization, the men are deeply devoted to their wives and family and will kill themselves at work to afford extra tuition for their pre-school children. But many of them see no contradiction between that level of devotion and letting off steam with prostitutes once a month at hwaeshik.