Mr. & Mrs. Lothario

A few years ago a vox-pop was conducted on an Italian street for RAI television, the question being: “Is jealousy part of love, or just a bad influence on a relationship?”

The majority of Italians responded that jealousy was essential in a relationship: if you love someone – or something – you desire to covet it alone and protect it viciously against anyone – or anything – that attempts to remove it. 

Now that one of my pseudo-phobias has evaporated – the viva – I find myself with an opening for third place, after nose-bleeds and spiders.

Clowns are too psychologically complex, flying too urbane, and death too inevitable to fear, which leaves the only contender that is in reality all three of the above: infidelity.

By all three I of course mean complex, urbane and inevitable, as opposed to the infidelity of kamikaze flying clowns; that would require a whole other form of analysis, possible in the company of a special professor, armed with a clip-board.

Call me old-fashioned, but I never fail to turn a ghastly shade of pale when news of an infidelity emerges. As my inner feminist scrambles for her bra and a box of Cook’s Matches, my inner skeptic seethes with rightful premonition.

The adage that men are built to cheat as a means to satisfy their primordial obligation to spread their seed is as time-worn as the hills, and fails to explain the equally persistent meanderings of women, too.

Equally, it can be argued that infidelity is a part of life; that the wife/husband in question can divorce love from sex and that this should not affect the relations within the marriage. Indeed, in certain cultures it is to be anticipated that the man will look outside the home for satisfaction, while his wife nurtures the children at home.

While I admire tremendously the individuals who chose to stay with the philanderer in question for the sake of their children, the sanctity of their marriage, and a plethora of other reasons, I seriously doubt that I hold the fortitude to forgive such an act and it strikes such fear into my being that I seriously consider avoiding marriage, in order to prevent such a thing occurring.

According to The Truth About Deception, a nifty little ray of cyber-sunlight, almost 60% of all married individuals in the United States will engage in infidelity at some point in their marriage, with the estimate remaining on the conservative side since almost 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

Moreover, research shows that 2 to 3% of all children are the product of infidelity, with most of these children unknowingly raised by men who are not their biological fathers.

According to the marriage educator, Cathy Meyer, the following figures emerged through a random test of her patients: 1 in 3 men admit to removing their wedding rings when socialising without their partner; 80% of cheating men are caught; and 64% of marriages survive infidelity.

Stereotypically, men are more likely to cheat than women. Yet according to Newsweek, as women become more financially independent they are starting to act more like men with respect to infidelity, with more and more women entering the work force and enjoying ”office romances,” as spouses often spend more time with coworkers than with each other.

Nevertheless, according to study conducted in 2004 by Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital, London, women have the ultimate excuse: their misbehaviour might be down to their genes.

The scientific study indicates that a woman’s tendency to be unfaithful could be linked to particular genes inherited from her parents, and that about a quarter of British women carry the infidelity trait that sharply increases the chances that they will sleep with someone else while in an apparently monogamous relationship with a man.

The gene findings emerged from comparing a study of 5,000 female twins with a survey of 5,000 unrelated women, as professor of genetic epidemiology, Tim Spector, elaborates:

By studying twins, we can separate nature from nurture. It does seem that there is a strong link between a woman’s genetic inheritance and the chances that she will commit infidelity.

The responses to infidelity are equally intriguing, with certain cultures favouring to attribute the onus to women and curtail their influence through female circumcision, limited contact between the sexes, and death as a punishment, while still others apply a degree of laissez faire, with a smattering of counselling.

Infidelity is a murky subject at the best of times, and while I point to it as the main reason for my avoidance of marriage, I nevertheless have faith in good marriages.

They are rare, but when you find one, it is the rare gem that can override any doubts you have ever had.