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Special: Can adultery save marriages?
Published on Sat, May 19, 2007 at 10:36, Updated on Sat, May 19, 2007 at 13:28 in India section
Tags: Relationship, Study
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Why get married? For human beings, marriage is such an unnatural state. If you want monogamy, it has been said, you should marry a swan. - Quentin Crisp, The Art of Celibacy
Mars-Venus, testosterone-estrogen, work husbands and wives, your space or mine… the War of the Sexes (they call it mating games) gets further convoluted as researchers come up with yet another, well, study.
Florida Atlantic University researchers Todd K Shackelford and Aaron T Goetz confirm what women knew for quite some time: human beings are not naturally monogamous, particularly if the being is a male.
After studying mating rituals like feather display and antler-butting techniques (in humans?), Shackelford and Goetz have come to the conclusion that males apparently compete with each other to deliver their sperm more effectively to females with multiple partners. Basically, it means that even after a male has selected his preferred partner, he will still go around and sleep with others.
All would have been fine if, like other animals, humans were a freely fornicating species too. However, while animals just ‘mate’, humans ‘marry’, and when you try polygamy while in a marriage, it is termed adultery. So far, polygamy seems to work for the other species. Can polygamy adultery, therefore, work for us too? Are our marriages and relationships breaking up because we are trying to force ourselves into a monogamous situation while our instincts are towards mating many? Can adultery - a little 'fun' on the side, 'excitement outside marriage' or whatever - save marriages and relationships?
Cheat for pleasure, repent in leisure?
We asked one of our relationship experts for his take on the entire humans-are-polygamous issue. "Such ideas that polygamy promotes a happy marriage should be immediately rubbished. To say adultery would make a marriage better is far-fetched. If someone is into adultery, then emotionally and physically you are involved with someone else; and it is not possible that your partner will be okay with this. Hiding it from your partner and doing it clandestinely takes all energies away that you should be putting into working out the differences in your marriage," says Dr Samir Parikh, psychiatrist, Max Health Care, N.Delhi.
However, all people are not that quick in dismissing the idea. For married-and-looking-for-fun blogger 'Shady Man' , "Adultery in moderation can save a marriage." Ask him exactly how does one moderate 'cheating' on your partner and he says, "Moderation, when talking adultery, is when you sleep with another person but don't wake up together… Basically sex minus the intimacy can be good."
His fellow-female blogger, 'Serendipity' — 24-year-old, single, self-proclaimed Miss Promiscuous — agrees but with a twist, "If you are stuck in a loveless relationship, then adultery can bring back the passion. But I am not sure how it can save a marriage. See, adultery brings back the passion in your life — the passion you are incidentally not sharing with your partner — so it is good for you, but not necessarily for the other. At the end of the day, if you feel lust for someone else, you are not into your partner. People who say that an affair saved their relationship are just saying they are bored with their lives and looking for excuses. Personally speaking, I got bored, I felt passion for someone else and I left the relationship immediately."
Feeling itchy-scratchy?
Does the same apply to marriages: when you feel the itch, you scratch it and save yourself a divorce?
"Sleeping around is any day better than walking out on a relationship or marriage," adds Shady Man, "Marriage is a lot more than just sex… food, laughter…"
"Why not?" asks short-film director and married man, Uddhav Ghosh. "In our country, the family value system holds a premium. In many cases, the couple might outgrow each other but stick close only for the sake of either appearances or kids and other things. In such cases, sometimes, an affair can save the 'farce' of this marriage. And hey, if we were 'supposed' to be polygamous, where's the debate? That would be the rule then."
Recently married Anita* agrees with the adultery-can't-work-in-India angle. "If one were outside, perhaps adultery or having another partner or a diversion can be considered as an option to save your marriage. However, here you have to think of a thousand other things even if you think about doing something like this: there are parents, their friends, relatives, your friends, your maid… almost everyone else but the two people involved."
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