Adultery: A Marital Crime

It’s no secret that the rates of adultery have gone up in modern society over the years. This is mainly due to the way it is viewed in different cultures, from Polygamy being accepted in certain communities, where marrying several women does not constitute as adultery. In addition, the high school frameworks have encouraged terms like “friends with benefits”, so much so that Hollywood had to go and make a movie on this subject. Bollywood also produced a box office blockbuster which addressed the subject in a more dramatic light but in my opinion was a reality check for our so called “conservative” culture and untapped the taboo via the entertainment industry.

I certainly don’t advocate the notion but I do feel it is important to be aware of the ways in which adultery can be a concept that enters our lives without prior warning and sometimes such a situation takes over our daily lives in the most natural ways, ultimately ending the strongest of marriages and relationships. It is our responsibility to detect these feelers that can be eradicated before it is too late.

It is important to frame the anatomy of adultery, to understand exactly what can be constituted as infidelity. We are all humans and have basic desires, like eat, drink, sleep and even the desire for sex. These are all necessary for us to function, however when misused can be harmful to our bodies and mind. 

In this context, when the wife or husband has shut down their shop for whatever reasons, one will look for another avenue to fulfil these cravings. This would be classified as physical adultery. Of course in many cultures this is actually accepted as I said earlier. In Russia women in their 40s only date married men because the life expectancy for Russian men has fallen to 54. Therefore, by the age of 65 there are just 46 men left for every 100 women. I state these facts like it’s such an obvious choice to make, but when you see it from a moralistic viewpoint; it is a clear example of physical adultery being committed.

What can often start a simple harmless friendship with another man or woman can slowly turn into what is classified as an emotional affair. The impact of such intimacy with another person can affect the level of intimacy, emotional distance and overall dynamic balance in the marriage. Once this starts to occur, it is classified as emotional adultery. The parties committing adultery need not have a physical relationship, but their intimate closeness is enough to damage the marriage.  

Another fragment of this behaviour is the actual act of looking lustfully at another human being other than your spouse. Let me give you an example of this. The burqa symbolises the female’s sexual sovereignty, it represents the ownership of it by another person, and in this case it is supposed to prevent other men from looking at these women and encouraging any lustful desires. I could argue on the counter argument where the same culture permits more than one marriage for the same man and yet this is considered acceptable. Well, that would be writing a whole different article altogether.

Returning to the concept of adultery, if a married man or woman sees an attractive person on the street and wonders how he/she would look like in bed, well this is classified as adultery. The Bible puts this very clearly: Matthew 5:27-28 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

I will not lay any bets on how many of us have committed this type of adultery more than once, and are in perfectly stable and happy marriages. I have an opinion about this and I believe beauty has been given to us for appreciation. I can appreciate beauty and would like to think others do the same. I cannot be classified as adulterous if I find another man attractive or if my thoughts happen to derail for a while. I call these my personal “Mind Games” and it is in our own hands to not allow the mind to cross the moral boundaries of fidelity. One must be responsible for the warning signs and know how to end their own mental joyride. 

Why does one commit adultery? 

To be honest, no one takes such a step on basic impulse. The thoughts of adultery are entertained in ones head for quite some time before the clothing actually comes off. I imagine it to be a process that initially is to fill a void of some kind or even to escape from a life that is not giving you any sexual fulfilment. I have even heard of situations where both partners have agreed to go for an open relationship and try sharing partners. This latter arrangement could well be referred to as a negotiated adulterous affair. 

In the latter situation one tends to forget that jealousy never goes out of style. If you and your partner have mutually agreed to be socially polygamous, bear in mind that one of you could well suffer the consequences and Murphy may dictate his law when you least expected it. E.g. what if one of the partners falls in love with this third partner and it has been a physical involvement to begin with, but turns into an emotional twist. Indecent Proposal was a film that portrayed this very clearly, your body can be controlled but your emotions cannot be governed, therefore don’t look on the outside to better your sex life, work from within.

For a man it tends to be physical. Instinct usually tells them to sleep with every attractive woman. It sounds horrible but evolutionary psychologists have suggested that men are more likely to have extramarital sex, partially due to the male urge to “spread genes” by broadcasting sperm. We will return to scientific part of human monogamy, but first understand the reasons why women commit adultery.

For women, it's emotional. They usually feel something is missing and they need to satisfy themselves again. It may not necessarily be love they search, but men tend to get comfortable with their women and the romance exits through the back door. Women feed off romance and of course look to fill this gap elsewhere. 

The science behind human monogamy

This will shock you, but only 3-5 per cent of the roughly 5,000 species of mammals (including humans) are known to form lifelong monogamous bonds. An exception to this statistic would be wolves, beavers and some bats.

The framework of our society has actually been built to favour social monogamy and the main reason for humans to abide by these rules is for the well being of children. Another important reason why humans advocate monogamy is because it is one of mammals where the father invests time in raising children; it is common knowledge that we humans value the role of paternal investment far more than most other primates. 

Nevertheless, we are not any less polygamous than other species and the only reason why a woman would probably not indulge in extra marital sex is again determined by the rules o society. Women could lose the “dad” and his resources when it comes to raising the kids. So, once again for the well being of the children a woman cannot encourage a promiscuous lifestyle. 

Sexual monogamy is therefore regarded as a societal structure, rather than a natural one. This explains why adultery is such a temptation, or in this case innate for both men and women. 

Sexual desires for people you don’t love

The final part of this article stems from a study which I discovered rather accidently, but has opened my eyes further to the notion of adultery. It has been assumed for a long time that for most of us a romantic love for another person usually evokes a sexual desire. Therefore, one gets married out of romantic love and thus takes part in sexual intercourse to have children and build a family. You could say a connection needs to be there for the sex to take place.

Well, it is also possible that one has sexual desires for people they don’t actually love and vice versa. It would create the situation where one is madly in love with their partner and thus decides to get married to them, once married they could discover they love the person so much but are not even remotely sexually aroused by them. 

The problem is the words romantic love, sex and desire are so closely webbed together that it might almost be impossible to separate them. 

A team led by Gian Gonzaga did just that. Their team asked monogamous couples to fill out a survey about their feelings towards each other and then were asked to sit facing each other in a room and engage in four different conversations: teasing, a previous relationship, a current concern and most important of all, recalling their first date. 

After extensive videotaping and analysis, it was seen that there was not significant correlation between love and gestures associated with sexual desire. Also no links were found between sexual desire and gestures that correspond to romantic love. E.g. if marriage was spoken about between a couple, this did not accompany increasing sexual desire, but it did have high levels of more romantic love. 

Interesting data isn’t it? So now if such couples discover these differences and decide to fill the voids that are missing in their marriage, I guess the answer would be to search for them on the outside!

Solutions

I have a simple answer to this problem. If you are married, please have lots of sex! Yes it sounds like the obvious solution, but honestly just spend some time analysing your marriage and ask yourselves how much time do you dedicate to the act of sex and what frills go around it? If you are a man, do you make romantic gestures towards your wife? If you are a woman, are you willing to show him more than just vanilla sex? This is just some basic advice; it obviously applies very differently to each couple. 

If you are not yet married but looking to settle down with your partner, well I always tell everyone the same thing. Don’t ask yourself if you can live with him or her but confirm that you can’t live without them. Do you see my point? 

It’s not okay to be in a relationship where the communication is on the fall as the years go by and it’s certainly not okay to avoid sex after you’ve had your kids. Whether you agree or not, as a human being it is a need you have in your subconscious and suppressing it won’t make you a happier person, and looking to fulfil it outside your marriage almost certainly won’t give you inner peace. 

I leave you with a Buddhist quote “ The evils of the body are, murder, theft and adultery; of the tongue, lying, slander, abuse and idle talk; of the mind, covetousness, hatred and error.” Say no to adultery and don’t allow your “mind games” to take over your mind.