Morality vs. honesty

And, cowering in the unfaithful husband corner, we have our latest champion, Mark Owen, supported by Kaye, Woods (X2), and Terry at the head of a line that stretches further than Macbeth’s vision of crowned heads: is that Cecil Parkinson I see attempting (and succeeding) concealment behind John Prescott?

And in the general rogues, rakes, rapscallions – or promiscuous libertines if you prefer – is…? Hmm, I suppose Callum is about the – er – Best we can come up with at present. The catalogue of previous Wild Boys is there, but there seems a dearth around at present, although they have always vied with the above for the most salacious tabloid revelations.

But which is naughtier? As Harry Hill would say, there’s only one way to find out: FIGHT!

Ironically, a hundred years or so ago both groups of men were accepted by polite society, as long as they didn’t actually talk about their escapades. It was almost de rigueur for the Victorian gentleman to have a mistress or six tucked away for his personal use, and many young bucks were given their life coaching by prostitutes. Of course, any woman behaving like that – or even becoming pregnant outside marriage – was a lost cause. But don’t get me started on that one….

Nowadays, when society is in practice secular, it seems anachronistic to preach to either group what the Bible says about extramarital sex – especially when one considers what it also says about homosexuality, menstruating women and food preparation. So surely we should base our condemnation or approval on humanistic logic, and that being so, there is a world of difference between the two groups of tabloid fodder: honesty.

Surely, the single man who chooses not to commit himself to an exclusive relationship with any one woman – or man – can live his life as he wishes. As long as he is open about what he expects – and doesn’t expect – from any liaison, fine.

Once there is a partner, to whom a commitment has been made, then his/her feelings and wishes should be taken into account. And if you happen to be (many men would say lucky enough to be) married to or living with a partner who is happy with an ‘open’ relationship and willingly accepts sexual infidelity as part of the deal, fine. Even more so if it works both ways.

But such relationships are rare: most of humanity seem biologically programmed for exclusive mating. There is a biological argument that females need commitment to support child rearing and males are programmed to spread their seed widely, but in practice, and expectation, in today’s society exclusivity is the normal order of the day.

So we come back to honesty: if the Owen/Kaye/Woods(x2) etc spouses knew all along what their men were doing and who with, and were happy to endorse their lifestyle, there would be no problem – and no scandalous tabloid fall-out. And although no celebrity should need to talk publicly about their private life, all the Tiger Woods of this world would have to do in such circumstances is avoid the hypocritical gushing in interviews about his devotion to his family.

Accepted morality, as history shows, is a moveable feast: honesty is a universal virtue.