The Office Party

An attempt at a commentary on monogamy from a man failing utterly to be monogomous at that time.



It's that time of year when parties play a large part of one's social calendar. Office parties loom large in the lives of many, Xmas parties throw together families who are still refusing to talk to each other because of what your Suzy said about our Sharon, and New Years Eve parties will see millions of people starting the New Year as they mean to continue; incoherent and pleasantly numb. The first and last of these three party pieces are also notorious for another festive flavour; infidelity and lack of faith to one's partner (of course, if you live in Saffron Walden, South Shields, or the deep south of the USA then this is probably a feature of the 2nd gathering as well; if anyone from those places reads this then I hope they're enjoying following the words with their one eye and 14 fingers...)

Before I even begin to have a look at what drives men and women the world over to casually cheat on the ones whom they supposedly love dearly I suppose it's worth having a look at what bizarre impulse exhorts them to promise a life of monogamy in the first place. Firstly, some cod science; I'm given to understand that man is genetically keyed to sleep around and generally try and have as much sex with as many people as possible. This gives rise to a number of issues. Firstly, does that therefore mean that marriage and monogamy is an unnatural practice (and if so, will the church declare it "Against nature" just as the pathetic timewarps do concerning homosexuality)? Secondly should we actually class sex and the kind of love that leads one into monogamy in the same bracket, or are they entirely separate things? Finally, does this mean that religion was wrong all along and God actually intended us to spend our days rutting away at anything with a pulse (if so then pity the countless monks and nuns who have spent their lives celibate; I'll bet they felt rather foolish upon getting to the pearly gates as St Peter greeted them and led them through to the sight of the assembled heavenly hosts indulging in orgiastic pleasures...)

If we work on the assumption that we are indeed predestined for a life of furtively hunting for our next conquest then we have to ask the question "Why do we have marriage?” After all, divorce rates are continuing to rise and I'm sure you're familiar with the stereotype of the unhappy couple staying together out of a sense of duty, as well as the numerous innuendo's about plummeting post wedlock sex-drive. Shouldn't we all just do what comes naturally? Tempted though I am to go running down that path shouting "OF COURSE WE BLOODY SHOULD! IT'D BE GREAT!!" I rather think that it is not as simple as that.

For example, whilst at University I behaved in exactly the way that students have done since time immemorial; I got horribly drunk a lot and had frequent and casual sex with as many women as I could. My girlfriend at the time did precisely the same thing at her university (erm, only she did it with men, despite all of my fevered fantasies...). If what I've said so far is true then that should have been the most natural thing in the world. If that is the case then perhaps someone can explain just why we both felt so utterly wracked with guilt at our betrayal of each other? We both generally shied away from such encounters when we had some brain cells that hadn't been felled by alcohol. In other words we needed Dutch courage; not to sleep with someone else but to quiet the voice of our respective consciences. If lack of monogamy is the natural state of affairs then why did my morality (such as it is) try so hard to stop me having a good time?

Monogamy and marriage made its first appearance along with early civilisation. There are Greek comedies from the 4th/3rd century BC that refer to marriage between a man and a woman (as opposed to the polygamous marriages that evolved mainly in African/Arabic/Polynesian cultures; lucky bastards...). Although marriage was a ceremony with religious overtones, it was not the supposedly sacred rite that we would recognise today. For example, the Ancient Romans of the middle and upper classes changed their wives more often than a student changes his underwear. Marriage was less about relationships than about alliances between families and to find a couple who had married for love was rare indeed; the Emperor Tiberius, although now noted as a paragon of depravity, was more famous during the early part of his reign for the absolute misery he had suffered by being forced to divorce his beloved wife Vipsania in order to marry the previous Emperor's daughter Julia. After he had taken to the throne his courtiers had to take steps to ensure that he never saw her again after one particular incident; she passed him in the street and he spent the day following her, unable to speak and with tears in his eyes.

Yet even in those times marriage was used as a benchmark of respectability. Unmarried Roman men were viewed as less respectable than those who had taken a wife. Unmarried Roman women were generally assumed to be either prostitutes or slaves. Emperor Augustus introduced laws imposing financial penalties on the unmarried. Did this attitude prevail as a deliberate contrast to, for example, the Oriental monarchs of the East with their harems and multiple wives, or to the Barbarian tribes of the North who were perceived to be amoral savages? Or was marriage encouraged as a method of ensuring that the Roman blood stayed untainted by that of non-Romans? Whatever the reason for it, a precedent was set; marriage, and monogamy within that marriage carried with it public praise and an air of respectability. Sleeping around led to one being tarred as a prostitute if you were a woman, a rogue if you were a man. And yet infidelity was widespread in the ancient world, so even then the social schizophrenia of wanting to appear respectable to the rest of society whilst simultaneously wanting to indulge one's urges was a feature of life.

Then of course the church became the driving force behind life in Europe. For almost 1000 years marriage was a racket ran exclusively by the clergy and my word what fun they had. Like the Romans, the church held marriage up as an ideal state of affairs for a man and a woman. Unlike the Romans they also made marriage a lifelong affair. Divorce was almost unheard of unless you were rich or well connected (and even that was no guarantee; Henry VIII got excommunicated for divorcing his first wife) and so most people married for life. This was considered to be the best state of affairs to have; even animals such as Swans that mated for life generally got a better press than those that did not (I always remember being taught at school that the swan was somehow better than other animals because of this. I wonder if the lesson plans changed when 2 male swans chased away the female mate of 1 of them and then nested together behaving as male and female...). And did this put a stop to infidelity in any way? Well, I think the answer would be a resounding no. Though the church held sway and adultery was a sin, people were ingenious in their efforts to justify their actions (I would hazard a guess that Bill Clinton's beloved excuse of blow jobs not counting as being unfaithful originated around this point in history).

And that pretty much brings us up to date. The influence of religion in our lives is slackening at a wonderfully fast rate and it would appear that the increase in divorces corresponds with that. We no longer feel as great a sense of duty in a marriage, and so if one is unhappy one can get a divorce or have a fling. And isn't the truth of it that in this day and age we have never been so affluent, so well fed, so generally comfortable? We are in a world where gratification of any kind can be yours pretty much straight away. Add to that the fact that women are no longer expected to be demure little creatures that stay at home and it seems that the opportunity to cheat on one's partner is widespread. People are also learning to differentiate between love and lust; if one is out on the town and has the opportunity to satisfy a few base urges with someone else who is basically after the same thing (i.e. no strings attached) then why shouldn't one do so? I would suggest that the guilt one feels at doing so is due to a combination of genuine love for one's partner, and 2000 years of being told that what you are doing is a BAD THING.

Of course I haven't even begun to address other things that play a part in the wonderful world of Adultery (possessiveness, actually falling for the person you have a fling with, etc) but I still can't help but think that the guilt one may feel is a mostly manufactured emotion. I don't wish to belittle those who have been tortured by guilt at their affair(s), but if they really were as heartbroken and remorseful as they say then wouldn't they just...well, not do it anymore? Once bitten is twice shy after all, yet many people are cheerfully unfaithful on a repeat basis. Is the heartache afterwards genuine, or just an emotional purge to satisfy themselves that they have felt bad for doing a bad thing so now the scores are even?