Cheating Mothers

"34 percent of mothers reported having had an extramarital affair after the birth of their children, according to a study released yesterday.

More than half, 53 percent, of women polled in the "Sex and the American Mom" survey also said they had entertained the idea of straying on their spouses."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05022008...ome_109104.htm

I personally believe that were not really meant to be lifetime faithful to one, and these statistics seem to bear this out. Perhaps the motive for straying is not so much the birth of a child and more the itch and desire for another partner after several (or more) years of intimacy with the same man. The article reports that women want more sex, but then many couples do get into a sexual rut and boredom, which again is probably indicative of the way we're not really meant to be lifetime faithful to one.

The 34% is a consistent percentage, and quite a few studies over the last forty or fifty years have put male and female cheating at around the 30% mark. Think about the married mothers on your street, how many are there? Your friends or relatives who are married mothers? How many are having or recently have had affairs? And, of course, their husbands or partners? Not every relationship has both partners cheating, so 30% + 30% is estimated to be around 50% or more of marriages. Quite a revelation when you think of it in these terms.

I think cheating in and of itself is despicable- that said, there are certain things that studies like this don't consider-extramarital sex is not exclusive to cheating, and they're probably counting people that have had extra-marital sex not just cheaters (as cheating, IMO is deceiving your partner about it, or doing something inappropriate with someone else without establishing clear lines of communication about it with their partners). You're correct in saying that for some monogamy does not work, but for many still, it does-it doesn't really matter how humans in the grand scheme of things were 'meant' to be, because it is what you are now that matters essentially-we're adaptable like that. But anyone who used an excuse like this to cheat (ie, lie to their partner about it instead of communicating about it or ending the relationship first) would be out in a heartbeat if they used this excuse with me. Interesting topic, Cbrmale.

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

My son's wife not only had an affair, she went off with the guy and left my son with 3 kids to raise practically by himself. She's an fool, in my opinion. Her mother disowned her, but my son is still nice to her. She had kids, then she wanted cats (2), and then decided she needed a German Shepherd, then she decided she wanted a different man. I don't know whether it's "human" to cheat, but that is a rotten, selfish thing to do to someone.

Basically, the 30% or so for women cheating has been a constant since the research of Kinsey, and some surveys have put male percentage as high as 60%, giving up to 80% of long-term relationships being affected.

My own views are partially shaped by the social psychology I studied at university, where many societies condone extra-martial sexual relationships. I am currently writing a novel set in the early middle ages (dark ages to some) based on the Arthurian romances. I'm having to re-work the source material, because at the pre-Chrisitian time when Arthur lived (he being based on a Roman-Celtic warrior-king named Artorius), marital fidelity was not important. Therefore, the downfall of Logres caused by the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere is absurd, and obviously inserted into the folk tales during the Christian high middle-ages.

The patriarchal Abrahamic religions are strident when it comes to male control of the female, desiring to control female fertility to enable property inheritance through the male line. Without strict control of sexual morals, this would not be possible as a woman's offspring could be fathered by anyone. Western sexual moral values are still heavily influenced by this desire to control sex which spans some 1500 years or so, but was relatively ineffective until about 150 years ago. The statistics above seem to indicate that attempts to control sexual behaviour within relationships are still relatively ineffective.

There are certain markers which point to a bilogical basis for humankind to be non-monogamous. The male human penis and testes sizes, for example, is indicative of promiscuity. In this example a bigger penis will deposit semen closer to the uterus, giving a better chance of fertilising an egg over less well-endowed men, and the large testes producing more sperm in competition with other men. On the other hand there are feel-good pair-bonding hormones produced during human sex which bring us close to our partner, probably to enable joint raising of offspring.

In an evolutionary sense, we regard the primitive and savage parts of our development as going back to something less than 2 million years, and our current civilised state covering about 3,000 years.