In defense of adultery the male-chauvinist advocates that man is by nature a polygamist and that the modern mores have denied him this bent. To expect a man to remain faithful on physical terms when he contracted to remain faithful only on spiritual terms is asking him to deny that he is essentially animal. After all, if he still loves his wife after an affair or a stay at the house of prostitution is he not still faithful? Moreover, is not the man now released of unnecessary tension and better able to renew his relations at home without undue demands on his tired old wife?
Somewhere the argument breaks down when the woman pursues the same premise that she too is a polygamist [ here, of course, intersperse the term promiscuous] by nature because the mores of thousands of years have repressed her natural tendencies through servitude which erroneously led to the presupposition that she is a one-man dog.
Obviously the pride of the peacock would not permit his hen to have designs on another. This double standard, then, leads to a unilateral contract and therefore is invalid. In a sense, there is no contract. Assuming there is a legitimate one, however, adultery is morally wrong except when one [at least] wills to terminate the contract as a result of the act. In this respect there is an air of integrity to divorce. Should either refuse to agree to divorce out of a sense of self-righteousness, then he or she must be prepared to face the consequences of further waywardness of the other party.
Besides there is a health problem, other than the mental anguish implied above, in face of the
statistics of V.D. among the indiscreet. The freedom of playing the field is the domain of the incurable romantic and in this sense his health would indeed be jeopardized in much the same manner the health of an Irish-setter would suffer under the conditions of city-dwelling.
This, of course, is not the domain of philosophy, but is at the door of the Department of Health & Welfare — unless we wish to get morality into the trend for bureaucracy and subsume all activity under it. In a prudish sense, I suspect, all should live under Kant’s categorical imperative, Mill’s quality of happiness, Confucius and Christ’s golden rules; but where would be the adventure?
You see, viewing everything under the aspect of morality is logically indisputable, but the trouble with that is it is equally logical to view everything under the aspect of immorality or amorality as well.