Temptation of Wife (), also called Lure of Wife, is a South Korean television series starring Jang Seo-hee, Byun Woo-min, Kim Seo-hyung and Lee Jae-hwang. It aired on SBS TV every Mondays to Fridays at 19:20 from November 3, 2008, to May 1, 2009, for 129 episodes. Temptation of Wife was a highly watched drama in South Korea. Despite many controversies concerning the questionable content of the drama, it remains one of the most viewed dramas with a daily average viewership of around 30%, and netted the cast several awards including the Daesang (Grand Prize) for lead actress Jang Seo Hee at the SBS Drama Awards.April 20, 2009. Retrieved April 20, 2009.
Temptation of Wife was part of the "Wife Trilogy", which includes Two Wives and Wife Returns. The series has localised adaptations from Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Turkey and Malaysia, as well as a 2009 male version of the series titled Temptation of an Angel.
Plot summary Goo Eun-jae (Jang Seo-hee) graduated as a make-up artist major at a university and began preparations to study in France. Her dreams to study abroad are halted by pregnancy after Jung Gyo-bin (Byun Woo-min) takes advantage of her when she is drunk. She decides to marry him and give up on her dreams in order to be a responsible mother to her unborn child. Eun-jae's pregnancy ends in a tragic miscarriage when she tries to protect her mother in law, Baek Mi-in (Geum Bo-ra), from being pushed down the steps by a creditor. Eun-jae falls and loses her baby. It takes a long time until Eun-jae becomes pregnant again. Around this time, Shin Ae-ri (Kim Seo-hyung) returns from her five-year-long studies from France where she studied make-up.
Ae-ri grew up in the same household as Eun-jae since she became an orphan at age ten. Her family was on the way to the Goo's household in order to have dinner with them when Ae-ri threw her clothes and doll at her father who was driving. As they were travelling in a storm, her father crashed the car. Both of Ae-ri's parents and her unborn younger sister died and the Goo Family took in Ae-ri and raised her for 20 years along with Eun-jae, treating her as if she was their own daughter. Later on, Ae-ri became the girlfriend of Eun-jae's brother, Kang-jae (Choi Joon-yong). Then, she left for France, revealing that someone was taking care of her tuitions for her.
After 7 years of living with the Jung family as Gyo-bin's housewife (and also as the housekeeper to the Jung family's mansion), Eun-jae soon discovers that her husband has been cheating on her with Ae-ri. It turns out that it was he who funded Ae-ri's travel to France. To add to this insult, Ae-ri reveals that she bore Gyo-bin's child five years prior named Jung Ni-no (Jung Yun-seok). Eun-jae's brother, Kang-jae, learns about the situation, upon which he sets out in anger to assault Gyo-bin. This event leads to Kang Jae and his mother in forcing Eun-jae to sign consent for a divorce. After the divorce, Gyo-bin and Ae-ri marry while Eun-jae moves back to her own family's house. Ae-ri goes to pay a visit to Eun-jae, demanding her to get an abortion. Eun-jae refuses to do so because of which Gyo-bin drags her to a gynecologist in Sokcho, forcing her into aborting their baby. Eun-jae again refuses. Gyo-bin then drives her to Sokcho Beach, throwing her necklace, given by her father-in-law as a promise not to give up on Gyo-bin, into the sea. Eun-jae tries to save the necklace, but not knowing how to swim, she soon finds herself being dragged away by the waves. Eun-jae begs Gyo-bin to save their baby but Gyo-bin ignores Eun-jae and abandons her at sea to drown and die. Ae-ri and Gyo-bin decide to keep this all a secret, lying that Eun-jae had committed suicide. Ae-ri fakes Eun-jae's suicide note which she gives to the police and Gyo-bin thereafter tells everybody that he had not seen Eun-jae the whole day.
In the midst of all this, Min Gun-woo (Lee Jae-hwang), the adoptive son of Lady Min (Jung Ae-ri) was near Sokcho in a search for his missing younger stepsister, Min So-hee (Chae Young-in). So-hee loved Gun-woo and wanted to marry him. When her mother, Lady Min refused, So-hee told Gun-woo to marry her secretly anyway. Gun-woo had decided not to tell his mother what was happening, as So-hee had run away from home. Lady Min arranged for another girl to marry Gun-woo, hoping that So-hee will give up and come back. So-hee arranges a marriage to Gun-woo on the same day as Lady Min arranges marriage. Gun-wo decides to follow his mother's wishes and marries the other girl. So-hee devastated that he did not come, then walks into the sea to drown herself. Gun-woo, searching for So-hee, finds Eun-jae's unconscious body instead. He then takes her to a physician doctor who reveals that she must lose the baby in order for her to be saved. Through the help of Gun-woo and the doctor, Eun-jae is allowed to live in the hospital for free where she worked at the same time to show her gratitude.
Lady Min, thinking Eun-jae's experience was similar to hers, introduces Eun-jae to her home. Thereafter, Eun-jae takes on the identity of So-hee, in order to seek revenge against Gyo-bin and Ae-ri who had destroyed her life and tried to kill her. Gun-woo falls in love with Eun-jae in the process and Eun-jae with Gun-woo, but Eun-jae decides to hold her feelings back for him in order to fulfill her revenge. Ae-ri gets suspicious of the woman claiming to be So-hee. One day, the two women meet and Ae-ri is positive that So-hee is Eun-jae. Eun-jae acted well and said that Ae-ri was crazy. Gyo-bin divorces Ae-ri and marries So-hee (Eun-jae). Gyo-bin kicks Ae-ri out of her house but keeps Ni-no, his son with Eun-jae.
Ae-ri gets even more suspicious and calls Gyo-bin when she sees So-hee (Eun-jae) and Gun-woo embrace each other. So-hee (Eun-jae) reassures that she loves Gyo-bin and that's why she has married him, ensuring him that Gun-woo and she are just close siblings. Gyo-bin wants to sleep with So-hee (Eun-jae), but she brings twin beds instead of one big bed and refuses his advances. Ae-ri begs for Gyo-bin and his family to give her son to her. Ae-ri gets Ni-no, but Ni-no gets injured and Ae-ri pities her son as she is now poor and would not be able to provide him a comfortable life. She returns Ni-no to Gyo-bin's family.
So-hee (Eun-jae) soon becomes worried about her true identity to be revealed by Ae-ri. So, with the help of Lady Min, they go to her parents and tells them the truth who helps her to have her true identity still covered. In order to complete her revenge, she tricks Gyo-bin to give all his family assets to her and her "mother" Lady Min, his father's company, their house, his mother's house and land and causes their family to go bankrupt. Lady Min had a history with Gyo Bin's father. They had a child together (they were not married) named Star. To Lady Min, Gyo Bin's father supposedly killed Star due to a sickness that was never treated and killed Lady Min's father by stealing their land. Lady Min gets revenge by telling him to give all his assets (including Cheonji Constructions) and selling his house because of charges on properties that were created by Gyo-bin to Lady Min. Because of this, he complied and gave them up. To humiliate his family further, Lady Min gets his family to switch houses with Eun-jae's family, or his large house will be auctioned and sold away. Ha-jo was reduced to being a carwasher and cleaner at Cheonji Constructions. Gyo-bin's family is now poor while Eun-jae's family is now living more comfortably. Gyo-bin says that he now loves Eun-jae and tries to force her to stay with him since they are still lawfully wedded but the disgusted Eun-jae hates him.
Eun-jae further terminated Ae-ri and plans to sell Ae-ri's beauty shop away. Upon discovering that the title deed of Mi-in's land is in Eun-jae's hands, Ae-ri came up with an ingenious plot to get her hands back on her beauty shop. Ae-ri first pleaded with Soo-bin, Gyo-bin's younger sister, and when this fails, Ae-ri sneaks into and manages to find Mi-in's title deed in Eun-jae's office. Hearing footsteps from outside, she hides behind the door and pushes whomsoever entered the office (who turns out to be Soo-bin) to prevent being identified as the thief, causing Soo-bin's right eye to be temporarily blind in the process, but Soo-bin manages to grab a button from Ae-ri's shirt. However, as Eun-jae discovers the injured Soo-bin, she was falsely blamed to have caused Soo-bin's injury. Ae-ri mortgaged Mi-in's title deed to unlicensed moneylenders in exchange for 1 billion won and successfully bought back her Beauty Shop. However, Eun-jae began to suspect Ae-ri was behind Soo-bin's injury, first, when Ha-neul wore Ae-ri's shirt with the missing button to the Goos (and which has the same buttons as the one which Soo-bin tore off from the culprit's shirt), and further, when Ae-ri was repeatedly harassed by the unlicensed moneylenders for failing to repay them on time.
The real So-hee appears, having suffered from serious depression. She gets mad at Eun-jae because Gun-woo has fallen in love with her and they had planned a wedding where So-hee later crashes. One day, when Eun-jae goes to work and everyone praises her for her make-up artist skills, So-hee tells all the workers that she was the real daughter of Lady Min and she proclaims herself the owner of Min Beauty Shop. Ae-ri sees this and asks So-hee to cooperate with her to ruin Eun-jae's life. First, they stole the 1 billion won which Eun-jae had borrowed from Lady Min to redeem Mi-in's title deed, which So-hee keeps for her own, causing Eun-jae to fail to redeem Mi-in's title deed when the unlicensed moneylenders feigned ignorance about their encounter with Eun-jae. Jang-jae confronted the unlicensed moneylenders who admitted that they handed Mi-in's title deed to Ae-ri. Jang-jae was furious, but Ae-ri pleaded with Kang-jae by falsely claiming Nino is his son and not Gyo-bin's in order that he would not hand her over to the police.
When Mi-in discovers that Ha-jo (Gyo-bin's father) formerly had a child with Lady Min, she plotted her revenge by abandoning Ha-neul (Ha-jo's sister-in-name) at a refuge centre and took away her handphone so that Ha-neul could not be contacted by anyone, but was spotted by Kang-jae in the process. Ha-neul was unhappy while in the refuge centre but was prevented from going out. Upon discovering Ha-neul was missing, Ha-jo confronted the Goos who informed them about Mi-in being last seen with Ha-neul, and as he leaves, he calls out the name of the child he had with Lady Min - "Star", which was overheard by Eun-jae. Eun-jae informed Lady Min of their suspicion that Star was still alive, and Ha-jo also confessed to Lady Min that Ha-neul is their daughter who is also still alive. Ae-ri overheard Mi-in's conversation with the refuge centre, and extorted another 1 billion won from Lady Min in exchange for Ha-neul's whereabouts. Lady Min complied with Ae-ri's demand, and Ae-ri ironically proceeded to "return" this sum to So-hee in order to redeem Mi-in's title deed from So-hee, and made use of the unlicensed moneylenders intends to remit this sum to Eun-jae's bank account in order to continue framing Eun-jae as the culprit behind Soo-bin's injury.