When Sunwoo and Hana met on Twitter, they were in their 40s and committed bachelorettes. Both raised by the sea in Busan, they studied in Seoul before entering the city’s famously brutal rat race, Sunwoo as a fashion journalist, Hana as a copywriter. They shared the same taste in music and books, and importantly, both had rejected marriage. No wonder. In South Korea’s stubbornly patriarchal culture, women in dual-income families spend nearly three hours more a day on household chores than men. Instead, Sunwoo and Hana joined the large number of South Koreans living alone. At first, independence felt exhilarating. By middle age however, loneliness was beginning to gnaw, and their boxy studio apartments felt oppressively small.
Two Women Living Together, a 2019 South Korean bestseller that spawned a popular podcast, charts Sunwoo and Hana’s decision to buy a sunlit house together and live not as a romantic couple but as friends. Across 49 warm, chatty essays, they invite us into the life they share with four cats, reflecting on everything from the food they love to their retirement fantasies.
Like any couple, theirs is a life of quiet joys and outsized irritations. Hana is a minimalist; Sunwoo, like a “crow that collects shiny things”, owns so many clothes her wardrobe breaks. They bicker about laundry protocols, New Year rituals, whether the house must be ruthlessly tidied before a big trip (of course it must!). Much is amusingly recognisable. After one argument, Sunwoo retreats to her room scrolling property apps and fantasising about leaving. Only when she realises she cannot face the hassle of uprooting herself does she slink out to make amends. Yet, as Sunwoo writes, we “may be stuck in an endless cycle of disappointment and forgiveness, but we never stop pinning our hopes on each other”.
Beneath the warmth lies a radical proposition: that their partnership should be treated like any family. When Sunwoo is hospitalised for surgery, Hana becomes her “primary guardian”, yet is ineligible for the free flu vaccine offered to employees’ families at Sunwoo’s workplace. Their relationship is invisible on official paperwork. “If only there were an option that connotes greater responsibility and trust than ‘friend’,” they write – “‘life companion’, perhaps.” In South Korea, where same-sex marriage is not recognised, those living in households with friends or as unmarried partners do not have access to equal tax benefits, welfare support, authority in medical emergencies or even the right to act as “chief mourner” at funerals. In 2025, progressives introduced a bill to secure rights for cohabiting partners and friends, arguing that widening the definition of “family” could address the effects of the plummeting birthrate, including an epidemic of loneliness and a care-gap. The conservative government blocked it. Still, there are green shoots: a recent change allows census respondents to describe themselves as “cohabiting partners”, a victory for LGBTQ+ groups that nevertheless leaves people like Sunwoo and Hana unrecognised.
The book is not without its frustrations. Some essays feel like filler. A proud cat-owner, even my patience was tested by the pages devoted to their pets. As a portrait of friendship, it is generous and witty; as an examination of a growing social phenomenon, I wanted more context. Is there a tradition in South Korea of unmarried, divorced or widowed women living together for mutual support, as happened in Britain and Europe for centuries? How do neighbours respond? Do people assume it’s a same-sex relationship? Are single men making similar choices, or is this kind of cohabitation even more taboo for them?
Interest in “platonic partnerships” is growing worldwide, as people try to cope with soaring housing costs and the unravelling of family-centred care. In France, cohabitating friends and couples can already enter a Pacte Civil de Solidarité offering legal protections. Germany’s previous government proposed Verantwortungsgemeinschaft (“responsibility companionship”) allowing up to six non-related people to pledge mutual care, though the new coalition is unlikely to pursue it. In the absence of legal recognition, stories like Sunwoo and Hana’s matter, making visible the growing number of people turning to friends as their primary source of stability, companionship and care, and demonstrating all the many ways of being a family.
• Two Women Living Together by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo, translated by Gene Png, is published by Doubleday (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
