Scene: A living room somewhere in America. A woman, printed e-mails in hand, confronts her husband with evidence of his affair. There is yelling and crying; he leaves for the night. Soon this couple will plunge headlong into therapy, or divorce proceedings. Such is the cultural script for adultery in America, a place where the slightest infraction can be grounds for losing your home and children. But what if, somewhere, people acted differently?
There is such a place. It’s called the rest of the world.The degree to which infidelity is accepted, and under what circumstances, varies between cultures, according to Pamela Druckerman, author of “Lust in Translation,” a new book which examines how men and women on four continents go about cheating. Druckerman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, became interested in adultery while posted in South America.
The routine propositions of married men and her own outraged reaction to them made her question adultery’s cultural underpinnings. What lay in the gap between their question and her answer? In “Lust in Translation” she chases the slippery subject through seven countries, piecing together a picture of affairs in France, Russia, Japan, South Africa, Indonesia, China and the United States through statistics, scholarly papers and interviews with dozens of adulterers and cuckolded spouses.
She found that while heartbreak might be universal, the conventions governing extramarital sex were not. For example, not everyone sees a spousal showdown as the proper response to the discovery of an affair. Druckerman interviewed a Frenchman who suspected his wife was cheating but never spoke to her about it. In France, while no one wants their spouse to cheat, adultery is a forgivable transgression.
Then there’s Russia, where fidelity just seems like too much to expect. There are few men compared to women – 46 for every 100 women by age 65 – and it is widely believed men can’t control their libidos. Supply and demand kicks in. One single woman in her 40s told Druckerman she wouldn’t have anyone to date if she didn’t go out with married men.
So cheating is tolerated, and “at most, (Russians view) infidelity as a vice, like smoking.” But Americans set high standards for married behavior, and those high expectations are part of what fuels a cultural script which demonizes cheaters and sanctions the nuclear option. Adultery is a leading cause of divorce; in surveys done in the United States between 1991 and 2004, 10.5 percent of married people said they’d had an affair at some point, while 31 percent of divorced people said they’d had one. Americans expect total honesty between spouses, with no secrets or outside flirtation allowed.
These high expectations can make infidelity hurt more when it happens. People feel they have been “living a lie,” that the affair has undermined the entire marriage. Even Americans who wanted to stay married told Druckerman they felt they should get divorced. “There’s this idea in America that you’re entitled to the whole fairytale, and when infidelity happens, you’ve been robbed of your birthright,” she said. “So you’re entitled to leave, and that’s what people around you will be saying.”
Compare this to the Japanese woman who didn’t understand the question when Druckerman asked if she felt guilty for taking a lover. She had no intention of leaving her husband, and she showed her respect for him by concealing the affair. “You can have different kinds of love,” she said. “With my husband it’s family love. With (her lover) it’s the other kind of love.”
But there is evidence that Americans may be growing more tolerant of adultery. The divorce rate is falling while the number of people who report cheating in the last year, about 3.5 percent, has remained the same. Druckerman said she expects this trend to continue as religious groups counsel forgiveness for infidelity rather than divorce, which they see as a greater problem.
Switching cultural scripts can be easier for some than for others. Western men who move to countries where infidelity is rampant, such as Russia or Indonesia, can find it easy to adopt local attitudes. It may be such countries attract Westerners looking for an excuse to cheat, but culture matters a lot, Druckerman said. Environment can be powerful.
She offered her own experience as an example. She was planning her wedding when she arrived in Indonesia for book research, and after several weeks of talking to adulterers, the “Everybody does it” attitude began to get to her. “I’m suddenly thinking, ‘Am I complete idiot for not doing this? Am I just on some Puritan high horse?’” she said. “And as soon as I left, I was like, ‘Thank God I got out of there with my conscience intact.’”
MORE ABOUT LUST IN TRANSLATIONClick here to hear
Paula Druckerman talk about French views on infidelity.Click here to hear
Paula Druckerman discuss the marriage-saving industry.
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