What happened to the sanctity of marriage?

A new study shows that over 1/3 of married women in America have cheated on their husbands since having children. Almost half of the married women have thought about having an affair and an equal number suspect that their husbands are having one.

www.nypost.com...

With 1/3 of married couples not being faithful and 1/2 being suspicious of infidelity, I have to wonder what happened? Personally, I think the media is largely responsible. Networks like Fox celebrate the ratings they get by running shows that highlight infidelity (temptation island, the new show with the lie detector where people will throw away a marriage for the shot at winning 500k...etc). The "instant gratification" that people seek in other areas of life now roll into marriage as well. If things aren't working out at home, they find someone else. Sanctity of marriage be damned.

I am married and I PRAY that my wife is not one of these statistics. Who knows though, the odds are not really very good. Personally, loyalty and trust are two of the most important things in life. It is very depressing to see that people are so selfish and would rather lie and cheat on their spouses than work out the problem or end the marriage before moving on.

reply to post by Karlhungis


1/3 of women cheated on their husbands?

Must have been with a gay guy since we all know that it's gays that are ruining the sanctity of marriage...

reply to post by Sublime620


Aye,

and shows like Will and Grace

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To the OP,

What's the current statistics of men cheating on women?

Is it the media or is it the people who allow the media to influence them?

reply to post by eye open doors


The media is people. People are influenced by people.

Maybe people are finally waking up to their true nature of sexual being, we're not designed to be monogamous.

Marriage is an institution created by the Church as an early form of control.

Monogamy is a cultural creation stemming from Christianity and the Romans, it's not our natural state.

We should loooove everyone...

reply to post by ANOK


Being non-religious I have to disagree.

Monogamy is cleaner. Being faithful requires patience and discipline. Nothing wrong with that.

It would also be extremely hard on children.

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy
The media is people. People are influenced by people.

I would disagree. When 'people' become an institution it's not 'people' in control anymore.

The 'institution' becomes influenced by outside forces, and the feelings and desires of individual people within the institution have no effect on its actions. All the 'people' do is is the bidding of those forces...

The outside forcing influence controlling media is capitalism, so the media reflects and works for capitalism, not itself or the 'people' involved. It becomes a machine.

The psychology of crowd mentality...

I have asked quite a few married men if they would have sex with a hot chick if they knew their wives would never know. Most of them said yes. Some of them said if the woman was hot enough they wouldn’t care if their wife knew of not.

I think it is just selfishness. I want it all and I want it now! Of all the people I know that have cheated on their spouse, the most common reason for cheating; it’s their spouse’s fault. She didn’t give it up; he wasn’t there for me, etc . . . I think the truth is they didn’t care how it would affect their spouse, they simply wanted what they wanted.

Originally posted by Sublime620

It would also be extremely hard on children.

I think it's hard on children when couples divorce or have affairs. But if it's an healthy open relationship from its conception... I don't see that being an issue for the kids. I mean, if it's how they are raised from the get go.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


You know I thought about that as I posted it. What makes it hard on children is that everyone else has a father and mother. That makes them feel like outcasts.

If it wasn't the "norm" to be monogamous, it probably wouldn't be hard on them at all.

*Edited to clarify what I was saying because it didn't make sense after re-reading.



[edit on 12-5-2008 by Sublime620]

I agree with Anok.

The 'Sanctity of Marriage'? It was always an institutional construct, pushed hard by The Church , which is constantly at war with our biological drives... which is to not be monogamous. Hence the discipline you spoke of Sublime. I am not saying there is something wrong with marriage. If it is a great marriage then it's a great thing! But high divorce and cheating statistics shouldn't surprise someone who looks at this from an objective viewpoint...

Originally posted by Sublime620
Being non-religious I have to disagree.
Monogamy is cleaner. Being faithful requires patience and discipline. Nothing wrong with that.
It would also be extremely hard on children.

You are only right in the sense that that is what you have been taught, and so any alternative is going to seem objectionable.

I didn't say I thought either way was better, I was pointing out what is obvious if you look at the history of marriage and monogamy.

You might be right that monogamy is better for you, and there is no reason you shouldn't practice it. It's when you want to force your values and desires on others I have a problem (as the church and the state does). Especially when those values are being imposed on others not because it's better, but because they want to control us.

There is nothing wrong with monogamy but you can't blame people for doing what nature intended?

WASHINGTON: A review by Florida Atlantic University researchers Todd K Shackelford and Aaron T Goetz has lent support to the growing body of evidence that humans are not naturally monogamous.

Source

I'm going to say something and most of you are probably not going to like it. I think that the biggest threat to the sanctity of marriage is pornography. I say this for several reasons.

1) Someone mentioned earlier the modern obsession with instant gratification...I think porn just feeds on this problem. For some porn can become a full blown addiction and the results aren't just that men aren't attracted to their wives anymore, but that they don't even bother to interact with them in other ways, like any other type of addict might.

2) Porn has seriously, seriously skewed our culture's view of what a woman is supposed to be. I'm not saying all men, but I am saying that I think men in the 18-30 age range who grew up with the internet and any kind of porn right at their fingertips, along with older men who have made up for lost time (lol) think that deep down inside all women are some kind of porn kitten. Maybe not consciously, but definitely unconsciously they think that women want to be sprayed in the face or some other thing that may not feel good but for some reason looks good on video. And this makes them fail not only to please their wives intimately, but also to connect with them in other intimate, nonsexual ways.

3) Men who deal with pornography on a regular basis have also forgotten what a woman is supposed to look like. (Most) Women who are not in the adult industry do not look like liposucked, collagen injected, fake boobed hookers. Most women have some dimples, or some wrinkles, or some freckles, or some other thing that according to the advertising/media bombardment is simply unacceptable. But if a man is becoming aroused on an increasingly frequent basis only by women who have more bodywork done than a low rider, then of course they aren't going to waste their time trying to cultivate a meaningful relationship with a normal looking woman.

4) Porn culture isn't just relegated to dirty movies and magazines. It's all over tv, movies, print, and advertisements in every medium. If a man is titilated by the (I'll say it nicely) Vampish sort of woman, and what man is not?, all he has to do is turn on cable, a recent hollywood movie, or open any sort of "men's" magazine with cars or fitness or whatever and he can see all the eye makeup and skin that the law will allow. And let's not leave out music videos, i.e. stripper training videos.

5)A long time ago in my grandparents' generation, before porn was available at the click of a mouse, and before it was even available in seedy theatres, people had a lot fewer sexual partners. No, not everyone was a virgin when they got married like some would have us believe. But, lots of people were, and the ones that weren't didn't go a-whoring with 30, 40, 50+ partners before they did tie the knot. And here's my biggest point: before porn was so readily available, there wasn't this crazy expectation for sex to be a mind blowing experience every time. Men didn't expect their wives to want to do all the things they've seen done in videos. There wasn't a constant comparison of your wife to Jenna Jameson in your mind. I think because of this comparison and expectation, men are always going to think that there is someone hotter who can rock their world better. A good friend of mine has told me he wishes he'd never seen a porn because no woman could ever live up to the height of the bar set in his mind by pornography, and I commend his honesty and introspection.

I think that this issue has to be examined on a macro level. I don't think that pornography is wrong per se, but it does have an effect on and in my opinion does cause problems in society. It may not ruin every marriage, but if it ruins enough then society suffers, much in the way that I don't disagree with an individual's right to choose to do drugs, but society is made up of individuals, and their drug use does have an effect on society.

I'm not laying every failed marriage at the foot of the husbands. I'm not some kind of feminazi who wants to blame men for all the problems. I think women are effected as well by a need for instant gratification and other marital issues. I'm only presenting one of the main reasons I think that over half of marriages fail and the other half seem to have lots of problems.

[edit on 12-5-2008 by sc2099]

reply to post by ANOK


Fair enough. Seems like you have a valid point.

Originally posted by ANOK
I would disagree. When 'people' become an institution it's not 'people' in control anymore.

When institutions and communities lose their control and are no longer the voice of People; are they not at that point simply the voice of another group of people? I guess really we are alluding to separating the Mob from their Masters? In that sense I have no qualms with calling the Media a Machine. Clearly it's still people, just not the people it supposedly represents... I agree with you.

When I responded to that poster I was really just trying to say "people are influenced by people".

reply to post by sc2099


That probably plays a part but I don't think it's down to just one thing.

I think a lot of people grow up thinking the normal thing to do is get married have kids, especially women. Men grow up homophobic and fall to peer pressure and do again what is considered 'normal' they get married.

But the pressure now is so great to be 'normal' people are marrying for the sake of it.

My sister married her first boyfriend, divorced 3 yrs later. Married her second boyfriend, divorced 2 yrs later. She's now married to her third boyfriend. No offense to her, but there's a pattern there that seems to me shows that marriage is more important than who she's marrying. I'd guess my sister is not unique?...

reply to post by ANOK


Well The Mormons most definitely share your sisters pattern Anok!...

**edited to add: I mean the valuing marriage itself, and not who you are marrying aspect... not the re-marriage part

[edit on 013131p://12u07 by Lucid Lunacy]

reply to post by ANOK


What I would say to that is that I don't think people think it's normal to STAY married. It's normal to get married and have the kids, but to actually put the effort in to make it work? That stopped being normal way back when.

A lot of people probably do get married just because they think it's the thing to do. But I also think that a lot of people today think it's normal to not even bother. They just have a bunch of kids and by the time they even want to get married no one suitable wants them because they already have a lot of bastard offspring.

reply to post by sc2099


You know, marriage counselors often suggests pornography for married couples

Honestly, watching porn alone might be a problem?.. but watching porn together, in a healthy relationship, has only served to make my relationships more fun and intimate. If I ever get married... we will watch porn together, no doubt.

I don't see porn as a big culprit, and certainly not the biggest culprit...

First and foremost, as has already been mentioned, I feel the biggest reason is simply that it is our biological drive.