Infidelity and Its Implications

by Christopher O. Tollefsen

As recent polls and recent events show, Americans remain morally opposed to sexual infidelity in marriage. At the same time, Americans show broad acceptance of premarital sex. But an examination of the reasons why infidelity within marriage is detrimental to human flourishing reveals sexual infidelity prior to marriage to be just as harmful.

Proponents of traditional sexual morality can take some comfort in the fact that, a few cynics and radical secularists aside, there is widespread agreement about the moral wrong of sexual infidelity in marriage. Although the norm requiring sexual exclusivity within marriage can sometimes seem as if it is honored more in the breach than the observance, the response to recent cases of adultery among public figures is not limited to accusations of hypocrisy. Most commentators, and most ordinary citizens, agree that married persons must remain sexually faithful to their spouses and that failure in this regard constitutes a particularly egregious betrayal of the marriage vows.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/07/761

Speaking of Maggie Gallagher

She is having a 'discussion' here, with Deroy Murdock over at The Corner at National Review. Deroy got mad because no one on our side is sufficiently incensed over an adultery-promoting website. Therefore, we aren't serious about marriage: our opposition to same sex marriage is suspect because if we really cared about marriage, we'd be railing against this website he found.
The argument is kind of silly, as Maggie said. She has been fighting to strengthen marriage for years. AS far as I know, she was the first person to see the full implications of no-fault divorce, back in her book The Abolition of Marriage No fault basically removed the state from enforcing the most basic terms of the marriage contract, and that it cause enormous hardship, especially to children.
Back in 2001, when I first published Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, Streetfighter Edition
people would sometimes ask me about same sex marriage, a topic that I did not mention at all in that book. I would usually say, "I don't deal with same sex marriage. My job is to straighten out the straight people, and that is a full-time job," and then move on. The truth is that there are so many affronts to marriage, that one really can't keep up with all of them, especially if we are to be held to the standard of commenting on each and every outrage.
So,I would just like to point out that my most recent article is entitled The Superstition of Divorce.
Take That, Deroy!

'Adultery' service targets married Texans

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow - 2/4/2009
A dating service is targeting its advertising at married people -- encouraging them to commit adultery.

The television commercials are from the Ashley Madison Agency. According to Bill Johnson of the American Decency Association, the commercials are "basically giving married people a place to find attachment with others who are available -- whether married or unmarried."

Continue...

A Married Man's Reaction to Elliot Spitzer

A reader sent me this letter, regarding the Elliot Spitzer scandal. The reader calls it "Why They Cheat," and signs himself, "Semper Fi."

I like real woman. I don’t confine my interest to super models, athletes and celebrities. Real women are interesting. I love their attention and ideas...and they ARE nice to look at.

Oh, my little brain works fine, but I’m married, extremely married. Adults know the line between teasing and flirting. Friends know better. Not only do you not cross the line, you don’t even come close to touching it.

Even fantasy women, models and celebrities, can’t come close. I have something at home that they can’t touch. I have dreams come true… touch by touch, night after night, year after year.

Lots of men, married and unmarried alike, are playing the game. Everything, and everyone, is about THEM. The trophy girl friend or wife is about THEM. The marriage, if they bother, is about THEM. They hear the “to have and to hold” part of the vows and ignore the “love and cherish” part. An affair is only another part of their ongoing love affair…with themselves. The affair proves that they are special. It is not about being attractive. It’s not even about surrendering to beauty. It is deeper and sicker than that. The forbidden is favored above the available and the more illicit the affair better. Why? Because the illicit proves that they are above the rules. The coworker, the married friend, the young girl… the young boy.

I WISH it were a problem only of playboys, of boys that did not grow up. It isn’t. There are playgirls too. Both are lost in their fantasy world where they are the featured player. IMHO, they are not special. They are broken.

There are exceptions. Some affairs are an honest spouse’s retreat from a broken mate. Divorce is the more honest response. But the serial cheaters are something else.

You can’t fix the gamblers. The best solution is to get as far away as possible. Leave them in their fantasy world.

Me, I’ll stay in mine. In my world, I have the woman I love and my dreams come true-- day by day and night by night.
Semper Fi

More on Elliot Spitzer

Maggie Gallagher has a New York-tough column on Elliot Spitzer. As she puts it, "Can we stop torturing the wives?"

can we at least end this barbaric practice of dragging your wife before the cameras while you confess your shameful guilt? If she wasn't there in the hotel room when you did your crime, don't ask her to do your time.

The practice began relatively innocently as something an accused man might do when he denied the allegations . A man's wife at his side showed that she, at least, believed the guy when he said he did not do it.

It was former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, I believe, who began the modern practice (Can we ban it along with waterboarding?) of parading the little wife before the cameras to hold your hand as you confess your guilt. The goal is to get the shell-shocked wife to demonstrate to the public that the offense is forgiveable. If his wife forgives him, how mad can you be?

But the practice requires a man to turn the best instinct of his wife -- to unite behind the family in crisis -- into an instrument of her own public humiliation.

And another thing: Can we end the public practice of trying to shame these wives into divorcing their husbands?

There's a reason we feel impelled to do this these days. Adultery has been redefined as a "private matter," as Spitzer put it in his vain, Clintonian attempt to redirect attention from his crimes to his sin. Because we no longer have any public punishments for adultery, we have turned wives into instruments of the public morality: If she doesn't punish him by divorcing him, he will go unpunished, which is intolerable. (Without some punishment, won't all husbands stray?)

I'm tired of this transference of the sins of the husband onto the wife. Leave the wives alone. Let's forget about standing by the man, but can't we at least agree to stand by the woman?

Look, I'm not a moron. I understand that men will use prostitutes for their own purposes without caring what happens to them, but can't we expect a little higher standard of behavior from an outrageously guilty husband toward the wife he has just embarrassed and betrayed?

Eliot, you are famously one big, tough dude from the Bronx. An "f-ing steamroller." Can't you go out in front of the cameras and face it like a man?