Comments on: Less adultery = more divorce?

By: advice for divorce

advice for divorce — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 14:19:37 +0000

I would like to see some statistics from studies on this. In relation to divorce I think perhaps adultery has not decreased, it’s just that women are not tolerating it as they used to. Women now are more successful, educated, and strong-willed as perhaps in the 1950′s.

By: Ms. Allison LaMantia

Ms. Allison LaMantia — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:33:19 +0000

Perhaps the reason female adultery is a “much less common occurrence” (in SC at least) is because of the financial realities of the SC statute regarding adultery and alimony (20-3-130A)? While the statute is gender neutral on its face and can therefore pass constitutional muster, the reality is that men typically are not in a financial position to receive alimony in accordance with the other statutory factors and therefore are not subjected to the same financial punishment that women are subjected to in the event adultery is committed. The worst that can come to the men? The court awarding the wife a greater share of equitable distribution and perhaps a bit more spousal support. However, with studies documenting the disparity of the parties’ financial positions years after divorce and with salaries for men and women in the workplace still unequal, the man’s opportunity to recover financially is arguably greater than the woman’s opportunity to do the same. Perhaps if there were an equally effective punishment for men as 20-3-130A is for women, adultery would become a more infrequent occurrence for men as well

By: Gregory Forman

Gregory Forman — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:20:09 +0000

California observer:

I acknowledge simplifying whether and when fault grounds in a marriage should lead to divorce. Obviously some spouses believe that their partner’s alcoholism or domestic violence are not beyond remedy but those spouses tend not to be seeking divorce and the ones seeking divorce shouldn’t be counseled to stay in their marriage. I still believe that some spouses who come to me seeking divorce due to adultery could possibly salvage their marriage if our culture wasn’t telling them otherwise.

By: California observer

California observer — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:14:37 +0000

The simplistic “Four Horsemen” division (violence/drugs/abandonment=horrific, adultery=merely unpleasant) picture gets more complicated, as a very perceptive friend just reminded me, if you consider as in comment #1 that some kinds of adultery are really bad, and some kinds of alcoholism or even violence can actually be treated….so whether to stay together in any one case, and whether staying together helps or hurts children, depends hugely on the details of the transgression itself for all four categories.

And society is just as harsh on women who stay with “abusers” as it is on women who stay with “adulterers”, right? In both cases there *might* be reasons for staying, it’s just that with abuse the offense is more likely to be nasty, less likely to be treatable, and more likely to be ignored or downplayed by the woman herself. So there’s lots of room for nuance.

By: California observer

California observer — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:40:27 +0000

Wonderful ideas–as ideas I mean, not as an excuse (I’m going to be married next fall, to a woman in the Michelle Obama category). How a couple interacts and deals with sex is *supposed* to be their private concern, right? Isn’t sex one of the main reasons for privacy in the first place?

Your core thesis, that adultery *reduces* divorce below what it would be otherwise, ought to be testable statistically. Like those Freakonomics guys who inferred that abortion reduces criminality: compare nations with different attitudes, states with different attitudes, changes over time, that kind of thing. Get some actual numbers….because if it’s true, it’s really important to know.

Good job!

By: Mindy

Mindy — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:21:06 +0000

Women are usually more readily able to forgive their spouses for adulterous behavior, than men to forgive. Men take it as hurting their egos, and their anatomy. All you have to do is read Shakespeare’s plays , which describes their feelings and their peers’ feelings quite well. There have been many books written about”Male Philandering”, which can be as disturbing as “Habitual Drunkenness”, “Physical Cruelty”, or “Desertion”. Every case of adulterous behavior can’t be put in a “box”. Before people make the decision to divorce, they usually weigh many factors.