This study classifies four lines of family ideology found among contemporary South Koreans and examines their contents and distribution by individual characteristics. In genral, the family relationship and domestic life of South Koreans appear to be affected by Confucian, instrumentalist, affectionist, and individualist family ideologies. The core trait of family culture in South Korea is that these diverse family ideologies do not arise in sequence by different periods and cohorts but show up simultaneously so as to cause highly complex psychological interactions among family members. Such diversity of family ideology is the outcome of compressed social and cultural change as reflected in family relationship and domestic life. Often the family change suggested in the dominating thesis of family nucleation in South Korea indicates the expansion of affectionist and individualist family ideologies at the expense of Confucian family ideology. While long-term family change seems to assume such direction to some extent, the crucial immediate concern in South Koreans' family life is the individual, familial, and social problems created by the simultaneous functioning of Confucian, instrumentalist, affectionist, and individualist family ideologies.