But this story outlived its fifteen minutes a long time ago and, personally, I’m getting tired of hearing about it.  I don’t see what all the shock and fascination is with this story.  It’s not as if he’s the first, nor will he be the last celebrity (or non-celebrity, for that matter) to fall off the monogamy wagon.

I also don’t see why Woods is off the golf tour.  I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other.  The state of his marriage should be a private matter between him and his wife and it in no way impedes his ability to play golf.  It’s not as if being monogamous would make him a better golf  player.

And it’s not as if he beat his wife and had done something criminal.  Indeed, if anything, the shoe is on the other foot in this instance.  It seems the only reason he had an accident was because his wife bashed in the back window of his SUV, thus distracting him, as he tried to drive away.

I’ve read comments from people cheering her on for this; taking the opinion that he got what he deserved for his infidelity. The sexism of such statements boggles my mind, as I’m quite certain there would be no cheering if their roles were reversed in this drama.  People would be calling to have him locked up and the key thrown away if it had been him bashing a window in with a golf club while she drove away.  It seems when it comes to domestic violence and infidelity, the double standard is alive and well.

Other people are shocked, asking how could he do such a thing.  Again, with the ubiquity of stories about celebrity infidelity and its corresponding prevalence in the lives of ordinary people as well, I think that people are asking the wrong questions.  They take the view that people are failing marriage, but in reality, it would seem that our idea of what marriage should be is failing people.

Instead of asking why so many people are unfaithful, we need to be asking such questions as, why are all marriages expected to be monogamous, why was monogamy originally instituted in the first place, are the original reasons for monogamy still relevant in our society today, what is the exact nature of “fidelity” — is it summed up by sexual exclusivity or can it refer to other aspects of a marriage and, if so, must sexual exclusivity always be a part of it. and so on.

Perhaps we need to be re-examining and re-evaluating the structure of marriage and the purpose it serves in our society and be willing to make some changes, instead of trying harder to cram people down into the same old, ill-fitting boxes.

Thoughts?

Neither wife had been the wiser until the first wife intercepted a text message for their husband from the second wife.  After texting back to the second wife and determining who she was, the first wife called the police to report him for bigamy.

After an investigation, police arrested him and charged him with bigamy.  The man is now out on bond awaiting trial.

Arresting someone for bigamy boggles my mind.  First of all, I don’t think the government has any business meddling in the private relationships of consenting adults, except for cases of domestic violence.  If it were up to me, I’d abolish marriage as a legal category altogether.

Knowing that this isn’t likely to happen any time soon, I think that as long as legal marriage exists, it should not be limited to monogamous couples.

That being said, with the law as it stands now, bigamy should not be a criminal offense.  At the most, it should be a civil matter.  In fact, I’d thought it was something that had been decriminalized — that when discovered, the second marriage would merely be annulled and the offender given a fine.

The police have much more important things to do than being in the business of enforcing monogamy.  They should not be involved in the personal relationships of private citizens if there is an absence of domestic violence.  In my opinion, the first wife should have handled the situation herself, perhaps by contacting a divorce lawyer, rather than calling the police and keeping them from doing more important things.  Sue the guy for breach of contract or some such thing, but don’t put him in jail.

Thoughts.

Formalized marriage and monogamy began for practical reasons, unrelated to any religious notions of “sanctity”. Once ancient hunter-gatherers settled into agricultural societies and ideas of private property and inheritance came about, socially sanctioned monogamous marriage began as a way to control women’s sexuality so men would know which children were actually theirs. Polygynous marriage existed for the very rich, but the women in such marriages were still monogamous, though men were not. It is because of this original reason that women are punished more severely for infidelity than are men, as men couldn’t be sure of who their children were unless women’s sexuality was tightly controlled.

Religious insistence on monogamy was soon added, as it gave the force of law to a practical idea in societies where religious leaders were the law. “God said it” leaves no room for debate.

People did not marry primarily for love until around the 18th century. It was strictly a practical arrangement, a vehicle for joining powerful families for the rich, along with inheritance reasons, and to have a socially sanctioned partner to have children with and work together for survival for the poor. Love, if it happened, was icing on the cake, not the reason to get married in the first place.

People lived shorter lives then, so “until death do us part”, did not include decades of the “empty-nest syndrome”. Most people were lucky to live long enough to see the youngest child to adulthood. Life itself was harder and more survival oriented, thus people did not worry overmuch about love or personal fulfillment then.

Still, infidelity occurred all throughout history for both sexes, despite sanctions against it, as it’s very difficult to overcome basic human nature. It’s always been a big scandal for women, but not so much for men until the 19th century or so. The feminist movement no doubt influenced the increasing disapproval of male infidelity, rather than freeing women to male norms.

Today, we marry for love, life isn’t strictly about survival, DNA tests prove paternity, overpopulation discourages large families, we live longer lives, women can support themselves, and the abolishment of legal distinctions between marital and nonmarital children have removed much of the valid reasons for legal marriage and monogamy. Thus, marriage as it’s currently understood has become maladaptive for modern needs. It’s no wonder we’re seeing what we’re seeing.

In light of this, marriage needs to be redefined if it is to survive in a workable form(s) and adjusted to reflect the realities of modern life and human nature. One of the first steps would be to cease mandating monogamy.

Yesterday, Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign publicly admitted to having an extramarital affair while legally separated from his wife.  His admission was accompanied by the usual insincere, crocodile tears statement:

“Last year I had an affair. I violated the vows of my marriage. It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life ,” Ensign said.

Spare me the treacly fake remorse,  Even among many of those who are much less permissive about sexual matters than I am, having a relationship while legally separates isn’t identical to having an extra-marital affair while in an ongoing intact marriage.   Though one is technically “still married” when separated and the law would consider it adultery, the de facto reality is that it has already been acknowledged that the marriage has broken down and that divorce is soon likely to occur.   To remain “faithful” to a broken marriage is merely to perpetuate a useless fiction.

The man was separated.  Obviously, he’s not going to be able to get any from his wife.  Is he expected to remain celibate while in marital limbo?   I think most people would agree with me that this is an unreasonable expectation in modern society.

As sex scandals usually go, this one is pretty tame.  He didn’t solicit a partner in a men’s room, like Larry Craig, nor did he run around on a sick wife, as did Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, and John McCain, nor did visit a sex worker, a la David Vitter.

But like Gingrich, Craig, and Vitter, he is guilty of rampant hypocrisy.  Like these men, he is a social conservative, who has made many judgmental statements about the decline of “traditional” marriage, and is a member of the Christian conservative group, Promise Keepers.

But hypocrisy is nothing new in Washington.

This latest sex brouhaha doesn’t rate more than a loud yawn from me.

But I believe that issues concerning children and those concerning marriage should be viewed as separately for a couple of reasons.

One is the fact that people marry for a wide variety of reasons these days with almost no one marrying for the single purpose of raising children.  People most often marry now for love and because they want to share their lives as a legally and socially recognized unit. And though many people would be happy to just live together to achieve those goals, they enter into legal marriage in order to gain the myriad legal benefits that come with making their union official.

Though most people do have children, it’s almost never their sole reason for getting married in the first place. It’s not as if couples who love one another but who don’t want to or can’t have children decide to simply remain friends because of that fact.

People who have no intention of having children, along with infertile people and people past reproductive age get married all the time, and no one is clamoring to remove their legal rights to do so — as long as they are heterosexual, of course.

Secondly, the law no longer distinguishes between children born to married parents and those born to unmarried parents. “Illegitimacy” has not been a legal status for non-marital children since the late 60s. The law now focuses on how children relate to their parents, rather than so much on how their parents relate to each other.

Hence, this makes opposition to same sex marriage for the “marriage is for having children” reason moot and invalid.