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?

She reviled him for his inability to be monogamous; that he’d been repeatedly unfaithful to his partner of 23 years. Calling him a “creepy, perverted old man”, she jeered at him for his apparent inability to “keep in in his pants”. And then she wrapped up with hand-wringing about the increasingly so-called “dying breed” of men who remain absolutely sexually faithful to their female partners who, unlike Letterman, in her opinion, were “upright, righteous, strong, moral men with integrity”.

I won’t take the time to address all her points here, because that isn’t the main point of this post, save to say that infidelity wasn’t something invented in the 1960s. People have been struggling to adhere to monogamy ever since it was imposed on us by religion countless generations ago.

What mainly struck me as absurd and short sighted about her post was the fact that the Letterman “sextortion” news has followed directly on the heels of the latest news about Roman Polanski’s arrest.

If she wanted to vent her spleen on a “creepy, perverted old man”, then she need not have looked any further than Polanski, who drugged and forcibly raped a 13 year old kid, then evaded justice for over thirty years. Polanski is the real deal when it comes to creepy, perverted old men and it’s completely ludicrous to even attempt to put Letterman into the same category.

Unlike Polanski and his misguided defenders, (such as Whoopi Goldberg, who has said that Polanski did not commit “rape-rape”, but “something else”), who have tried to minimize the seriousness of what he did, Letterman has stepped up to the plate like a man and openly admitted the dalliances without trying to explain them away. Unlike many other celebrity men who have been outed for adultery in recent years, was honest about his behavior.

Letterman was also involved with adult women in consensual encounters; hardly the crime of the century that will lead to the end of civilization as we know it. Polanski and his defenders, who somehow think he’s special and not subject to the same laws as the rest of us, on the other hand, say something very sad about our society.

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.