Marriage, Love, Infidelity and A Few Other Things

First, sorry to all bloggers if I have missed your comments on my earlier posts. Yahoo/Blogger normally lets me know but for some reason... pffffffffffffft!!!! Also to the folks who posted comments on my photoblog, I had no idea, and now its really too late to comment on your comments. Will look at my photoblog more. Speaking of my photoblog, I did post some pics of my friend Troy who lives in the Boston area and is a single guy. As I told Fleece, when I get to Boston in November I'm sure he'll see more of it in the three days I'll be there than he has in the past year. Beatdown with a bowl of clam chowdah, which I plan on consuming at an alarming rate while I am there. I may just decide that's all I need and live off of it. If its better than the best of the muck we have here, I will be a very happy Inanna. Okay, this is crazy... I'm getting hits from 1:00 p.m. today. Maybe Yahoo/Blogger is constipated and will begin pinging me with e-mails like... oh we don't want to go there. The following is something I wrote right after I started reading other people's blogs. I was quite disheartened at the time and I felt like I was being the most idealist person in the world to believe that one man would want to spend his life with me and have sex with no other woman BUT ME for the rest of his life. I still believe it is possible. Let's see what you guys think. Marriage, Love & Infidelity I’m bummed out because I read an online diary of a man last night who is cheating on his wife. Not having an affair, which would constitute emotional involvement, but merely meeting women once or twice, having a few go arounds and then moving on. Now he believes that biologically men are geared to spread their seed and that marriage and monogamy are inconsistent with that biology. He sites reports that upwards of 70% of men and 50% or so of women who are married have cheated or are cheating on their spouses. He doesn’t mention that women are biologically geared toward propagating and procreating with those she deems to be the stronger, better genetic form as to insure the strength and survival of the offspring. Okay, biology, hormones, etc. I get that. But that’s mere biology and applicable practically to every biological creature. Does the peacock not shake his tail feathers as testament to the female of his grace, beauty, honor and strength. Does the swan cob not rise from the water and beat his wings before the pen? But wait, swans are monogamous. Hmmmm....biology again? Biological anomaly aside, what is supposed to separate humans from other species is free will, correct? Logic? The ability to reason? What? I am reminded again of two things in my quest of understanding. The Clintons and Plato. I chuckled myself. I will put forth pure conjecture based on the readings I have done first of the excerpts from Bill Clinton’s mother’s book and Hilary Clinton’s book and then I’ll get to Plato. I believe that intellectually and accordingly, emotionally, Bill loves Hilary as much as he can love a woman. May not be what society wants it to be, may not be exactly what Hilary wants, but it is so. In Virginia Kelley’s book, she makes no bones about the fact that when Bill brought Hilary home to meet her that she was shocked by her plainness, not to mention, Hilary was not warm and fuzzy. Bill reprimanded his mother and brother with words something like "I need someone I can talk to." In other words, he sought his intellectual equal regardless of her unflattering looks. That in itself is a type of love and part of the big picture of love. At least in my book. Plato speaks of spiritual loveliness in the Symposium and how one may find it even in the "husk of an unlovely body, he will find it beautiful enough to fall in love with and to cherish..." Perhaps in Bill’s case the spiritual loveliness to him is Hilary’s intelligence and passion for her beliefs. Conjecture on my part, pure conjecture. However, Bill stopped on the Ladder of Love at about that point. Plato goes on to describe those having followed the path of Love find that love is not beauty nor does it take physical form of any type, basically it is infinity without form. Deep stuff which I’m still studying and will probably never figure out, if I was ever meant to. So, Bill loves Hilary, loves her deeply, finds her intellectually stimulating, a partner in politics, in life, in combined pursuits. Ahhhh... but Bill is also biological. Meaning, he needs sex. I hate to think that Hilary is a bore in the bedroom but truthfully, I think so. Not that this is any of anyone’s business. Frankly, I think Hilary and Bill have or may have had a tacit agreement, – do your thing, but be discreet. Oops. I think their marriage goes far beyond a business arrangement of intellectual minds and there is genuine affection and love between them. So back to the cheating spouse on the internet. Some excerpts from his diary: So was out last nite with the significant other ("SFO") at some hot and trendy establishments. She looked good no doubt...but so did almost every other chick dressed in hot pants, halter tops or skin tight hip-hugging jeans. ...The institution of marriage is also not an issue of dispute. Marriage has many benefits and joys unrelated to sex and physical intimacy. The concept of strict monogamy in marriage, however, is another issue. This concept is a social construct re-inforced (sic) with certain religious dogma that is counter to social nature. Once again, in every aspect of our lives we are encouraged to diversify, meet new people, obtain new relationships and foster interaction, except that we must sleep with only one for our entire lives. Why? I have to agree with his assessment of the dogma and religious mores associated with fidelity and infidelity. We’ve already established that biologically speaking, with a few exceptions, that we perhaps are not meant to sleep with just one person our entire lives. As evidenced by the first paragraph and by other entries, he truly believes that there are just too many good looking women to just sleep with one. Yet took a vow to forsake all others. Religious dogma? Societal pressure? Had there been no Bible and we were all taught to love freely without repercussions, would anyone remain faithful? Or would we all chase the next chick in tight jeans or the guy with the washboard stomach? For all people the answer may be yes or no. Personally, I believe there are people out there like me for whom sexually the idea of continually chasing a new piece of ass once or twice a week would be boring and unstimulating. This does not make us better than the person who does, it simply makes us different. Perhaps others may believe that the cheating spouse may have the best of both worlds, the spouse at home, the piece on the side and for right now, he’s getting away with it. But I do not understand the compulsion of this. Even though I know women who are just like that, determined not to be tied down by the bonds of matrimony so that they may flit and float from one to another, even though their ex-spouse gave them permission to do so, even with members of the same sex. It is no wonder that I feel freakish in this world today as I believe that love is a set of ladders, moving from the physical beauty, to the beauty of the soul, to the beauty of shared knowledge and intellect and further to a beauty which has no form and is infinite. Marriage is not the ideal, neither the beginning, nor the end, but as Khalil Gibran states in The Prophet: Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. And in reading that, one is moved by the fluidity and grace of Gibran’s words but in the context of this topic, does it perhaps mean too, when the pillars of the temple stand apart, that the oak and the cypress cannot grow in each other’s shadow, to let the wind flow between you... can this not be interpreted as a call to not hold too tightly to that which you love, as it will surely begin to suffocate and as it suffocates it struggles and strays? It seeks the new song and dance, a new lute, a new loaf to bite off of? Can this be interpreted to allow each partner their own, even in the context of infidelity? Although I do not believe that to be Gibran’s intent, I certainly saw the poem with new eyes in regard to the question of marriage, love and infidelity. Just an interpretation of the musings of a Greek philosopher, a Lebanese poet and a 21st Century Idealist.