Posted on 07/16/2004 5:06:01 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Friday, July 16, 2004
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Monica Lewinsky has finally apologized – but to the wrong party. In a startling letter to Liz Smith of the New York Post highlighting her desire to take responsibility for her actions in having had an affair with the president, she writes that she took the opportunity in a recent television interview "to apologize to former President Clinton for having betrayed his trust by confiding in my friend Linda Tripp. It's an apology he was owed and one I wasn't sure had been given."
Talk about weird. Here you have a single woman who had an affair with a married man. But rather than apologize to the man's wife for stealing her husband and causing her terrific pain, she apologizes to her former lover for betraying their secret. But then, single women who have affairs with married men are rarely held accountable. It's always the men who we blame, while the women get off the hook.
To be sure, a lying and cheating husband is a greater offender than the single woman he cheated with because it is he who breaks his marital vows and sins against the woman who took his last name and bore his children. Married men who are unfaithful lack gratitude, display obscene selfishness, and offend the Creator – who in His infinite kindness provided them with a lifelong companion to mitigate their loneliness and provide erotic excitement.
Fair enough. But why should single women who have affairs with married man be treated as neutral parties who have done little wrong? Why indeed in the sad Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was all the opprobrium heaped on Bill and almost none on Monica? Why do single women who are home-wreckers get a pass?
If Monica Lewinsky were to have stolen Hillary Clinton's watch and gotten caught, surely she would have been condemned as a thief. And had she broken into the White House in the middle of the night and kidnapped Chelsea, she would have been hated as a kidnapper. But when she took away a woman's husband by trespassing the deepest intimacy which is the exclusive domain of a wife, she was made into an international celebrity and given an apparel line and a TV-hosting job to boot.
America, it seems, is becoming a nation of adulterers. In my 2002 book, "Kosher Adultery," I charted the rapid growth in extra-marital liaisons over the past few decades with the most startling increase being, surprisingly, among married women. Indeed, Newsweek magazine published a revealing cover story just last week about the shocking rise in the number of wives who are taking lovers and betraying their marriages.
A few years ago, Cosmopolitan magazine went even further in asserting that married women are having more affairs than their husbands. Even if this is an exaggeration, there can be no doubt that the deep marital dissatisfaction among ignored and neglected wives has led to a startling explosion of women who believe that indulging their right to feel sexy in another man's arms is an acceptable solution to an unsatisfying relationship.
I wrote "Kosher Adultery" to demonstrate to married couples how the erotic sinfulness and steamy lust of adultery could be transferred into the all-too-legal institution of marriage. My desire was to teach husbands how make their wives into their mistresses and turn their marriages into an affair. No doubt, making marriages more passionate is a key ingredient in curbing the growing culture of infidelity. But there can be no substitute for the critical reproach that is absolutely mandatory in holding people accountable when they cheat on their spouses. And that means meeting out significant social censure both on the spouse who cheats and the partner they cheat with.
Far from adultery being something benign – "It was just sex honey, I didn't love her" – to be cheated on by one's spouse is one of the most painful and agonizing experiences a man or woman can ever endure, and we dare not trivialize it. In one study, a group of women described the trauma of discovering that their husbands had found a mistress akin to being present at their own funerals. When your husband replaces your body with that of another woman, it makes you feel like you're a corpse. You married this man because he made you feel special. Now, not only are you plain, you're non-existent. You've been replaced by someone more beautiful.
I found it outrageous and immoral when so many people asserted that Hillary Clinton experienced no anguish in the Monica Lewinsky scandal because she and Bill "had an understanding." Here was a case of a wife being robbed not only of her husband, but of her legitimate right to experience pain. I have never been a great fan of Hillary Clinton's politics, but dehumanizing her through speculation as to her reptilian nature and her inability to feel aggrieved by a philandering husband was downright criminal, especially when many who were making the allegations claimed to be defenders of the institution of marriage.
And here we go again, with Monica Lewinsky apologizing to Bill for confessing their affair to a confidante while offering no apology to the aggrieved spouse.
Some of my friends tell me I am wrong to be so hard on Monica. They point out that single women who have affairs with married men are the real ones who suffer. They are the ones left with a broken heart when the affair ends, while the husband usually goes back to a forgiving wife and children. Surely, they tell me, this was the case with Monica who is now a marked and lonely woman for the rest of her life.
What an absurd argument. Should we then feel sorry for the criminal who steals someone else's Mercedes when it is confiscated by the police and he is now forced to walk? Should our hearts bleed for poor Immanuel, the lunatic who stole Elizabeth Smart, when he was robbed of his "wife" and thrown into prison for his acts of rape and kidnapping? After all, he was left with nothing as well and suffers till today of a broken heart.
I know, I know. Adultery is not murder and it's not kidnapping. I agree. But that doesn't make it trivial or insignificant. Just ask any of the women whose husbands cheated on them and they will tell you it was one of the most painful and humiliating experiences of their lives. Indeed, marital infidelity often leads directly to allegations of murder and rape as America knows all too well with the high-profile trials of Kobe Bryant and Scott Peterson.
The pain of an unhappy marriage is never assuaged through the momentary pleasures of a becoming a lying rogue.
The author must have been out of towm or under a rock during the clinton presidency. This was all blamed on lewinsky for "seducing" clinton.
Sorry, but, I am a man and I am married. If I ever decided to have an affair (which I wouldn't because I love my wife dearly) why would I not be the one blamed. If I lied, tricked, deceived and pursued a single woman into bed with me, with my marital status unbeknownst to her, why is she to blame?
See that's the problem, people are so quick to go after the woman. That's what I don't understand. If it is rape, the strategy is to discredit the woman, if it is an affair as stated above, it is the woman's fault. You know that is the one thing that made my blood boil with the whole Clinton/Lewinsky fling...the press attacked her. Granted she is no innocent, but the insults, slurs and harrassment that she suffered as a result, while Clinton basically had no backlash was unbelievable. Anyone remember the 'portly pepperpot' descriptiuon added to her name in just about every news article? did anyone, anyone ever ask Clinton ...Hey you were married, why did you pursue this young intern? Why couldn't you keep it in your pants? He even talks about it in his book, like it was no big deal. he had to sleep on the couch for awhile...big deal.
Speaking as a father of a young girl, I truly think the world would be a better place if a greater percentage of the men in this world kept "it" in their pants.
>>Husbands cheat, pianos can't.<<
So if I want to steal your piano but cannot get it out the door, I am innocent?
We used to look down on women who attempted to steal a woman's husband. All women looked down on them. Now they are justified? You seem to be saying that this is all on the man, who I will admit is a creep, but if you don't want to eat junk food, you keep it out of the house. If women still stood by each other and did not go after other women's husband's, a cheating husband would have no one to cheat with.
What about the women who attempt to have affairs with men who are strong and do not cheat? I had an Aunt who did everything but rape my Dad. She was going through a tough time in her life and my Mom moved her in with them. My Dad finally had to tell my Mom what was going on with her sister and my Mom threw her out. Was she innocent?
>>If I lied, tricked, deceived and pursued a single woman into bed with me, with my marital status unbeknownst to her, why is she to blame? <<
I agree. But I know of three marriages which were broken or threatened to be broken because of women who knew the men were married but didn't care.
Do you think Monica didn't know Bill was married? She was young and stupid but gee....
If Monica Lewinsky were to have stolen Hillary Clinton's watch .............
At least she would have had something worth a damn.
See, that's my point. Your mom and sister were obligated to each other. The aunt broke the sister bond. Shrillary and Monica had no bond, they were nothing to each other. Bubba, on the other hand, did had a bond with his wife and the nation. Of course Monica and your aunt are not innocent but that's apples and oranges. As for the Commandment, it was that a man may not covet his neighbor's wife. Rather sexist but there's nothing there about a single woman going after a married man. And if I remember correctly from Catechism class, it is the married person who commits adultery but not the single person because the married person has the commitment of marriage whereas the single person doesn't.
ANY sex outside of marriage is a sin . IMHO
Of course she knew he was married, but if memory serves me correctly, she was basically put to blame by the media. It takes two to tango as someone else said in another post and the general perception was that she caused this, she should have known Willie couldn't keep his trousers on and not put herself in that position. Which is a load of crap if you ask me. She may have been willing, but Willie was the aggressor.
Plus, yes, she was young and stupid, but he should have known better
Let me point out that there are a number of women who don't seem to WANT to feel sexy in their husbands' arms, much less anyone else's. Women are fools if they think they can cut their men off from sexual intimacy for months at a time, and not run the risk of them looking elsewhere. You can say anything you want about what men SHOULD do in such a case, but it's like spitting in the wind, given the power of the male sexual drive.
-ccm
Ridiculous. It's the man who signed the covenant, not the girl.
Oh please. Hillary's "reptilian nature" is hardly speculative; she accepted ongoing philandering in exchange for power. The only legitimate pain she experienced at the time was that of despot who feels his power slipping away; not that of a woman scorned.
I understand the good Rabbi's point, but the Clinton's are hardly an appropriate example of the pain of infidelity.
WHAT ABOUT APOLOGIZING FOR RUINING LINDA TRIPP"S LIFE??? GEEZ! the arrogance! the misdirection of a shallow and vain and vacuous life!!! tripp has a so-called friend tell her all kinds of ILLEGALITIES and then makes her swear, complete with veiled threats, not to tell THE TRUTH in court!!!! WHAT ABOUT HER?
So if lifelong companion doesn't provide same, it's OK to have an affair then?
"But when she took away a woman's husband"
But she RETURNED HIM! (maybe a little worse for the wear)
/smirk
In the olden days when adultery was taken seriously, a participant in adultery could be sued for "alienation of affection".
Why not today ?
sex is a desire, not a need. In marriage it is also a right, but it comes with a lot of responsibility. 'Months at a time' or not, 'looking elsewhere' is wrong.
Dr. Laura makes that point often. She chastises women who, after having their first child, seem to lose interest in sex. "Why should he stop being a man because YOU decide he's done his duty, fathered a child, and he can now step to the back of the bus?" She blames women for the break-up of marriages after children come along because women hide behind their children to stop being the wives their husbands married.
Men should certainly not be looking elsewhere, but it should surprise no one that they do, if their women try to turn them into monks.
Well of course it is and I never said it wasn't. That does nothing to change the facts of biology and evolutionary psychology.
My point is, a woman who cuts her husband off from sex for months at a time, and expects the man's sense of right and wrong to keep him out of the arms of other women, is taking a serious risk. Right, wrong or indifferent, that's the way it always was and always will be. You can huff and puff about how wrong or wicked it is all you like, and be perfectly correct, and yet not change the behavior of men one iota.
-ccm
Its human nature. The alienation of affections can sprout from what seems at the time the most inconsequential thing in the world imaginable...
It's obvious: We need a constitutional amendment against adultery.
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