''Hoju'' is a

family register Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events (births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in differe ...

system in

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

and formerly in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. ''Hoju'' () means the "head of the family" or "head of the household", ''Hojuje'' () is the "head of the family" system, and ''Hojeok'' (;

McCune–Reischauer McCune–Reischauer romanization () is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems. A modified version of McCune–Reischauer was the official romanization system in South Korea until 2002, when it was replaced by the R ...

romanization: ) is the "family register". In South Korea, it was formally introduced in 1953. It is similar to the Japanese

koseki A or family register is a Japanese family registry. Japanese law requires all Japanese households (basically defined as married couples and their unmarried children) to make notifications of their vital records (such as births, adoptions, dea ...

, the Chinese

hukou ''Hukou'' () is a system of household registration used in mainland China. The system itself is more properly called "''huji''" (), and has origins in ancient China; ''hukou'' is the registration of an individual in the system (''kou'' lit ...

and the Vietnamese

Hộ khẩu The hộ khẩu is a family register and residence registration system in Vietnam. ''Hộ'' (戶) is the Sino-Vietnamese word for "household," and ''khẩu'' (口) is the word "mouth", hộ khẩu itself meaning "household member." The local author ...

. Opponents of the ''hoju'' system believed it to be innately patriarchal and representing a "violation of the right to gender equality". In South Korea, it was opposed by both feminists and by representatives of other religious traditions including

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

. South Korea abolished ''hoju'' on 1 January 2008 after the Constitutional Court found it incompatible with the constitution in 2005.

References

Family registers Law of South Korea {{Korea-stub zh:戶