Morality has been a key factor in naturalization. However, defining what constitutes good moral character has never been specified, leaving interpretation of the good moral character requirement to the discretion of immigration officials and judges. Based on an analysis of court cases filed by marriage migrants, this article expands our understanding of the legal interpretation of the “good morality” requirement in two significant ways. First, by examining the nature of the morality requirements applied to marriage migrants applying for citizenship, we identify that controlling sexual morality is one of the key mechanisms of gendering the path to legal citizenship. Second, our analysis questions the fairness of the judicial rulings and shows that judges are not reliable allies for immigrant spouses. South Korean judges tend to show great deference to the administrative branch and rarely rule against the decisions of the immigration officials. Further, the rulings tend to follow cultural and gendered, rather than legal, understanding of “good” wives and husbands. Ultimately, in the case of South Korea we show that that marriage migrant moral jurisprudence deviates from the developing jurisprudence that decriminalizes intimate choices and challenges the traditional gender roles within a family.

中文翻译：

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从配偶到公民：韩国婚姻移民的性别平等和性别化道路

道德一直是入籍的关键因素。但是，从未定义什么构成良好的道德品格，而是由移民官员和法官自行决定对良好的道德品格要求的解释。在对婚姻移民提起的法院案件进行分析的基础上，本文以两种重要方式扩展了我们对“良好道德”要求的法律解释的理解。首先，通过检查适用于申请公民身份的结婚移民的道德要求的性质，我们确定控制性道德是将合法公民身份性别化的关键机制之一。其次，我们的分析对司法裁决的公正性提出质疑，并表明法官不是移民配偶的可靠盟友。韩国法官倾向于表现出对行政部门的尊敬，很少裁定移民官员的决定。此外，裁决倾向于遵循对“好”的妻子和丈夫的文化和性别理解，而不是法律理解。最终，以韩国为例，我们证明了移民移民的道德法理学不同于正在发展的法理学，该法理学将亲密选择定为犯罪，并挑战了家庭中传统的性别角色。