Adultery has been a hot topic that people are always interested in, examining and wondering about why exactly would one cheat on their partner, what they get out of it, why ruin a good on-going relationship and more.
In many religions and cultures, adultery is not just unacceptable and considered to be a sin but even according to the legal systems of various countries, India included, a crime.
But I really do not understand how something like ‘adultery’ can even be considered a crime? A crime, as per my own knowledge is something that physically and psychologically harms another person.
Within crimes, you can include, robbery, rape, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping and more such ones where the intent is especially malicious.
In regards to adultery, the intent is not as much malicious as its just being selfish or perhaps not really having a clear head at a certain point in your life.
And I could even say that altogether, adultery is not entirely wrong.
Now wait a second, and let me explain that while I do think on a moral and ethical ground adultery is not right, however, at the same time it is not entirely wrong either.
Affecting Only A Small Group Of People
With the way adultery is treated, especially by the legal system and society at large, it is placed along the same level as murder almost.
While in reality and frankly speaking adultery is truly not as big of a deal as it is made out to be. Adultery when committed only affects a small group of people at max and that too less in a physical way and more as an emotional hurt.
The only people affected are the partners themselves, their family if the couple is married, and the children.
Apart from this, society at large is not affected or harmed in any way if someone commits adultery.
Read More: SexED: “I Am A Homosexual. And There is Nothing Unnatural About It”
Humans Are Not Monogamous
As per the popular book ‘The Myth of Monogamy’ by psychologist and zoologist David P. Barash and psychiatrist Judith Eve Lipton, monogamy can be divided into 2 categories, social monogamy which is basically sharing your life with one partner, raising and reproducing offsprings, and having sexual relations together. The other would be sexual monogamy which is more about only having 1 sexual partner at a time.
Now the authors say that while social monogamy is possible, for humans sexual monogamy is not entirely natural.
According to a research as per a post by HuffingtonPost, out of 5,000 mammals, only about 3 or 5% of them are truly monogamous to one mate for their entire lifetime.
And even among these rare species that included animals like wolves, foxes, beavers and such, it has been found that they occasionally do have flings or side relationships.
So scientifically speaking, monogamy is not natural and thus adultery is not only not wrong but something that is inevitable as per nature.
Hurting Themself Only
While we could say that adultery is morally wrong, however, there is truly not a way we could measure emotional hurt in any way.
Most of the times people comment on how the person committing adultery is hurting another person, but it could also be just them hurting themselves.
Because right or wrong, adultery is something that can never be hidden. It will come out and your partner will find out about it one time or another.
So although there might not be anything wrong per say with one committing adultery, you should keep in mind that the truth will come out and you must be ready to deal with the consequences of it.
Image Credits: Google Images
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http://edtimes.in/2017/04/sexist-nature-of-adultery-law-in-india/
The title says “I don’t think adultery is wrong”. So it is your personal viewpoint. I respect your freedom for thinking, and I will be with you for protecting it. But I cannot agree with your views.
1- “A crime, as per my own knowledge is something that physically and psychologically harms another person” – quoted from this article itself. You compared adultery with more serious crimes like rape, robbery etc. Regarding rape and child abuse, it is always the long-enduring psychological trauma that tears a person apart and not the physical one. Regarding adultery, it is also the same but varying in severity. A more sensitive person can get depressed and traumatized for a long time than others. Also they lose trust in others. Most of the time, partners who were brought up in a family that cherishes good values or who have been given a value-education (where integrity, loyalty, sincerity and such qualities were more important than mere degrees) are affected the most. These are the people that hurt themselves as you said in the article. I’m not saying the case of both the partners cheating on each other’s back. Because such persons can leave it as a mere selfish act. But for the people brought up in a different environment or people giving more importance to such values, they suddenly know that they have been deceived. That can lead to grief, frustration, anger, revenge, and even disbelief in the principles and morals that they were rooted till date. That is how they hurt themselves. Hence the severity of adultery can vary among different people and hence it cannot be termed as a mere universally accepted selfish act.
2- Affecting only a small group of people
Rape, murder, robbery, child abuse, kidnapping etc. affect only a small group of people (a single or multiple families) compared to mob crimes during communal violence, riots etc. which affect a large group of people. But we cannot ignore those crimes on the basis of how many persons are affected. Adultery is also similar. It affects a small group (2 families at the least) but that logic doesn’t make sense to me.
3- Humans are not monogamous
I don’t know whether humans are monogamous or not. I also didn’t search Wikipedia for that. All I know is that humans have got choice every moment compared to animals. Man is special compared to animals (self-consciousness, appreciation of beauty and nature, humour sense, awareness of death, understanding of time, has a meaning for life, a sense of morality, capacity for wisdom, and among all the capacity of love –
my personal favourite). With all these choices before man, I think it will be better to go high up than live an animal-like life. The reason you can express your views about adultery is also because you are a human being with such special abilities. So regarding adultery, you can decide what is best for you with all these choices ahead.
4- Hurting themselves only
I have laid out my views in point 1 itself. So no need to explain any further.
And I appreciate your courage in expressing your views whilst living in a highly intolerant country, especially about topics like these. Keep writing!!!