Although it’s nicey-nicey saying things like ‘all people are the same’, we only differ in the color of our skin, or our gender, it’s far from the truth. We aren’t all equal as some claim, especially when it comes to affairs.
When it comes to affairs, attitudes and values change from country to country and region to region. Affairs are tolerated more in large urban areas with a metropolitan outlook. Affairs are less tolerated in more rural and agricultural focused areas.
When I’ve discussed recovery from affairs, the responses given in Connecticut, which views them as a routine part of married life are far different from those in Florida, where they are viewed as shameful.
Affairs aren’t treated the same in all parts of the country or in all countries.
Toleration regarding affairs is also very different from moral acceptance of affairs. Affairs remain immoral and sinful wherever they occur. The acceptance of affairs in some social strata has not changed its moral status.
The main difference is whether the community tolerates or excuses the act of infidelity. Many nations or communities put up with affairs, but that doesn’t mean that affairs are acceptable.
Around the world, there’s more toleration of affairs in France than in Italy. Yet, even in France, the values of Paris are not the same values of areas such as Alsace or Normandy.
Even Japan is seeing an increase in affairs, yet has a low divorce rate.
In the United States, the values of those living in urban northeast are distinctly different from those living in rural area of the South.
These differences mean that the attitude towards affairs, the risk of divorce and the acceptance of swinging change depending on where you live. These differences are often reflected in the laws, the sermons and social behavior exhibited in those areas.
For this reason, it’s hard making a blanket statements about affairs or divorce that applies to a whole nation or group. You can’t pass laws that fairly apply to the whole nation or group, since there are so many differences.
When you do pass laws about adultery, divorce or even marriage, you take a a stand on values and morals. That stand may or may not line up with the standards and beliefs of the community.
Laws are not ‘value-neutral’. Laws have never been value neutral. They’ll always reflect the value system of some group, especially when you are addressing topics as personal as marriage, adultery and divorce. When laws impact family, they’re never neutral.
Although the legislatures and courts may ‘deem’ certain behaviors as ‘acceptable’, it doesn’t change the immorality of affairs. The city, or county commissioners or state legislature may pass laws saying that a particular behavior is legal, yet it doesn’t mean it’s acceptable or moral.
The law making bodies can change laws about adultery, but it doesn’t change the moral status.
It’s as if the law says, you must accept the adulterer as an equal member of society. The people know that the cheater is morally flawed and of ‘bad character’. The cheater is stained with a substance that doesn’t wash out.
No amount of legal edicts removes the stain of adultery from their character. The cheater may be legally in the clear, yet still be immoral.
For centuries, the areas of marriage, adultery and divorce were handled by the church and its legal system. Thinking that secular politics could do a better job, they took over jurisdiction in the matter and discovered that they do not have easy solutions.
They can make proclamations and laws, but it hasn’t changed the moral landscape or made the people equal, whether they’re cheaters or non-cheaters. They also don’t have the relationship with the people that the church had.
When it comes to cheating, the old saying “those people aren’t like us” is very true. Cheaters are not the same as non-cheaters.
Cheating is also a problem around the world, whether or not the nation you are living in tolerates it. Toleration doesn’t make cheating right.
Laws don’t remove the stain of cheating from the reputation of the cheater. Educational enlightenment does not make infidelity acceptable either.
It only provides cheaters with more excuses and more elaborate mental gymnastics to justify their immorality.
Best Regards,
Jeff
