This research analyses the husband and wife relationships depicted in TV dramas aired during the period between March and April in 1998. A tentative conclusion drawn from this research is that TV dramas afterwards the IMF crisis enforce the mechanism of which reproduces the patriarchal hierarchy between husband and wife. Since the 1980s, the husband and wife relationships have shown some degree of progress towards egalitarian orientation along with popular culture gaining wider currency. Popular culture under the IMF crisis, however, is now reversing such progress back to patriarchal order. The dislocation between academic theory and popular culture in terms of the husband and wife relationship might be due to the absence of interactive discourse between them. As much as the modus vivendi of individual is molded by the context of popular culture, the real life relationships between husband and wife are influenced by the depiction of the relationships among family members in popular culture like TV dramas. An implication of this research is that the orientation of family relationship depicted in popular culture and the extent of its influence are to be explored in depth as a new field of Family Studies.