Scruples
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“Scruples…They are unbearable to me, because I have suffered too much from scruples…” ~ Anaïs Nin
All of this talk of infidelity and morals has me thinking…thinking about how some people see the ties of marriage as a pair of shackles, see the mores of society as beneath them, as not appyling to them, because they are ‘free spirits’, and thus, somehow above it all.
I try not to be judgemental of folks for the way that they choose to live their lives. If someone wants to have an open marriage, as long as everyone knows what’s going on, OK, whatever. If, for example,  Anaïs Nin feels stifled in her marriage, and wants to explore a more passionate, sensual world, OK. If Sheba from Notes on a Scandal needs to feel pursued in order to feel alive, also, OK. But the judgemental side of me says, do it with honesty. Anaïs should tell her husband, so he can decide whether to stick around or not, decide what level of relationship he is willing to have. Sheba should talk to her husband, and definately not get sexually involved with a child, no matter how willing and eager that child may be. (And yeah, he was mighty willing and eager…but still, a 15 year old boy.)
There are some mores that are outdated, and thus they fall by the wayside. There was a time not so long ago when Ted and I could not have married, due to social mores, and yes, I do happen to think we are above that type of thinking. The difference is, that Ted and I both chose to marry someone with a different skin color. Neither of us promised to be one thing, and then turned into another. We have not betrayed each other, we do not hurt each other.Â
There is talk sometimes of the ‘artistic temperment’, as though those who are artistically inclined are less willing to live by the mores set by society. We can see plenty of examples of this by looking at Hollywood, but I suspect that there is that underbelly to any community, to any group of people. There are those who do not feel that rules apply to them, and they do not really care if someone gets hurt in the process. Sheba, the teacher in Notes of a Scandal, does care, she does not want her husband to learn of her affair, she hopes desperately that she can keep her family. She does, however, continue her affair long beyond when she promised she would end it.  Anaïs Nin does not want her husband to discover her affair, but I’m not clear whether she wants to avoid him being hurt, or whether she is more worried about the financial bind she would be in if he were to divorce her. That she later went on to committ bigamy, (though not with Henry Miller) and that neither of her husbands knew about her double life, speaks volumes to her feelings of entitlement, her disregard to their feelings or rights.
I wonder, though, if the key might be not only in wanting to experience more of life, more of the passions and dangers, but also in some kind of masochism, as though they do not truly feel that they deserve happiness, or they feel like to not be continually suffering is to not be truly alive.
I don’t know…what do you think?
18 Comments
Ml
It’s difficult to say why people do what they do and act they way they act. I think a lot of these behaviors you described have to do with people trying to find things to make them happy. They’re empty and unfulfilled on the inside. Instead of trying to heal their innards, they spend a lifetime trying to find outer sources to fix themselves.
Even knowing that some of the things they do are morally wrong, it’s almost a unconscious drive to continue with their quest.
Py Korry
It’s tough to figure out the motives of people like Nin and Miller. They were certainly living life that was beyond the morality of the middle class. But living a double life is less about bucking convention and more about being a dishonest person — in my view, anyway.
ann adams
I think dishonesty hurts everyone including eventually the dishonest.
Maya's Granny
I find stories about people who hide their nonconformity with social mores bothersome. People who, as your grandmother wuold say, flaunt their disregard for a given rule are being honest, everyone knows, and you get the feeling that they believe the rule is wrong. But people who hide it — do they feel that the rule is wrong or only that they are above it?
curiositykiller
Wow, you’re certainly thinking a lot lately from the Henry and June book. I saw that movie, and never had the desire to read her book… although I’ve heard so much about her… you know how the French is like.
I want to stem upon your thinking. I finished reading History of Mistresses and currently reading History of Celibacy. There’s so much you’re covering here and I want to share a few thoughts of my own…
(1) In a general sense, men for centuries have “unleashed” their beast of lust and desire upon their objects of affection. Usually are out of the sense of possession – that’s easy enough to figure out. Men have affairs, hurt and lied for many years and women put up with them (for financial or emotional reasons) — and again generally speaking only in the past 100 years are women capable (with physical rights, freedom, time and financial independence) of exploring their own sexuality and romantic gestures and live to tell their stories, hence the popularity of Anais’ books, and here we are – talking about it.
(2) I am certainly a die-hard romantic fan of monogamy. Anyhow, I find it interesting you brought up the term “cuckholdingâ€. I never heard of that term till 2 years ago when a highly educated and intelligent professional (non-monogamous) man explained it to me. I find his relationship with his girlfriend (and other women) distasteful but at the same time he was very open and honest about it with an interesting arrangement… however also extremely manipulative. In modern days, it is a fashionable phenomenon “cuckhold†where the husband in a twisted fashion enjoys the humiliation of a promiscuous wife). Sidenote: there is actually a racial cuckhold phenomenon in America (white man gives his white wife to a black man… it’s really weird).
(3) Re: Women being self-destructive by having affairs. Obviously there are some cases which are superficial attempts to gain attention, but some women having these affairs are driven from deep-rooted needs – whether these romantic rendezvous be in secrecy (thrilling danger and excitement), dishonesty (guilt), or again subconsciously develop cuckholding through their husbands’ wishes or desire.
(4) Last, but not least, I’m often coined with the term of having ‘artistic temperaments’ (in a negative manner) – therefore I feel like I have right to expand on this:
First, most people in Hollywood (actors, let’s start them as an example) are people placed in high profile situation with massive temptations around them. So to deal in this situation, they “experiment†or adopt other models and philosophies to retain multiple partners or have short-term relationships (can’t hold onto one person for too long). Of course there are exceptions, but that would make them so much more special and endearing, so the audience would “choose” them as the “best” models. They are not above as they would call upon themselves (although there ARE people who would)… the situation produced unexpected outcomes.
Secondly, having an “artistic temperament†often transcends the necessary attitude of ‘thinking outside of the box’. What is frowned upon, what is taboo, what we cannot have… what we shall not tempt to possess. Social norms and religions have incredible power on shaping our concepts of dealing with romance, relationship, love and marriage. Even today as we are on the verge of breaking away from patriarchy, it still remains the most accepted model for morality, relationships, and marriage. Again, artists think outside of the box. I am monogamous because I choose to.
Thirdly, in history, artists are forerunners of hyper-emotional beings. Some could only “truly†love one person in their lives, and everyone else is companion. Also insecurity issues that barred them from taking on responsibilities of a marriage – that is now more recognized… and unfortunately adopted by many singles. The normal life is never normal when normal person can’t handle the other person’s “loose canon†tendencies to drown and float – and as we all know – when we suffer, our family suffer with us.
Many people (not exclusive to artists or performers) often have the emotional elasticity to bear heightened ecstasy and deep depressions (guilt, wrong-doing, etc) It’s like a car-crash, it’s the reaction that hit us most greatly as humans. Some don’t survive it, but some are driven to new heights of feelings, understanding, and levels of clarity. From these “crashes”, some become capable of clarifying and reiterating experiences in words or other forms – hence writers write, musicians sing, and artists draw.
After all these talking… I want to mention “TIME”. Nowadays, we have too much time on our hands. We don’t work 18 hours anymore (medieval times) in order to live well, and we don’t worry as much as to how to feed our children (because it’s no longer required by law that you have babies by 18)… On top of that, we have media to thank for with conveniently beautiful people, frivolous lifestyles to nurse expectations and ideologies… we have so much TIME to think… all that put together, you get a huge percentile of singles in cities. Relationships have to be custom-made now.
Whew~ I’m tired now, I think I need to lie down. Does that make any sense?
J
Wow, Curiositykiller, that’s a post for your blog all in itself! Great discussion! My only addition would be, certainly it’s OK for people to play with social mores in their own lives, and ‘swing’ or have an open marriage…my problem comes with the dishonesty of not sharing this information with one’s spouse.
curiositykiller
Oh yes. Honesty, how did I miss that? Using the highly intelligent professional (non-monogamous) man as the perfect example — his girlfriend knows and participates in his “thing”… but the honest was too much… she didn’t have the mental capacity to handle it… and eventually broke down. Turns out, as I suspected, he convinced her into this lifestyle – he chose her as his partner into his lifestyle — not she’s the right one for his lifestyle… It’s crazy twists of events.
I don’t know if I can post this on my blog… I don’t have an origin to begin this discussion like yours — from reading the controversial book Henry and June… we’ll see.
You mentioned Anais should tell her husband so he could decide “what level of relationship he is willing to have” — I agree… but on a clinical note — I think, at least I hope, all these “experiments” would educate us as individuals on the what level of relationship we are capable of having, as adults – what the rules are, and how to implement them safely and kindly.
Anyhow, I think people should just stick to old-fashion fantasies and their respective partners and stop f**king around.
curiositykiller
I don’t know how I keep looping around the core of your question and not really sticking with the argument… sorry this topic got me all fired up.
Let’s just say for argument sake. I haven’t read the book and the movie is not that great — so I’m not familiar with Anais’ husband’s psychological makeup… but you do – so I’ll ask you — do you think her husband would understand if she tells him? Besides, what purpose would it serve if she had told him? I’m very open minded, hence I’ve known many uncommon people and learned that… in the upper-middle to upper class… alot of marriages are based on “see no evil, hear no evil”. Some just don’t want to know — I guess unless, in Anais case, she wants to rectify the situation or leave him.
J
I don’t know what her husband’s actual psychological makeup is, because it is her journal, not something objective. I suspect he would kick her to the curb, however, because he would be pissed that he has to share his wife, sexually, with someone who she considers to be a MUCH better lover than he is, because she wants to be ‘conquered’, and Henry does this, while Hugo (husband) does not. Also, he would be pissed off to discover that his hard earned money, earned at the job that his wife disdains and thinks of as the ultimate bourgois loser job (he’s in banking), is supporting Henry’s lifestyle, including doing his wife, many times a day, in his bed.
Whether he would be more open minded if she were to come to him FIRST, and tell him she is curious and wants to have an open marriage, I don’t know. I have heard of marriages that work this way, and it provides both the husband and the wife with some excitment and thrills. But I don’t know if this would work for him or not, since we only see him from her very skewed point of view.
The purpose that it would serve would be to be honest with him. Perhaps it would not be kind, it might not accomplish anything other than forcing him to admit something he might have been willing to ignore, but I never got the sense in the book that he would have.
Lalunas
Wow, curiositykiller had some excellent points, I will agree with her.
Kvetch
From personal experience I can tell you that you don’t know why someone does what they do unless you walk in their shoes, and are inside their head. Hurtful deeds to one are destiny to another. One’s perception is his or her own reality. Right and wrong is subjective.
It is not one’s abilities that define who they really are, it is one’s choices.
Time reveals life’s secrets to us, it’s reasoning and it’s why.
I understand today much of what I never understood before.
I think that marriages are personal – and we cannot say what is right or wrong for someone else. Being lied to and cheated on was wrong for me. Doing that to me was right for my ex. Does that make any sense? Strangely, it does to me.
starshine
“…some people see the ties of marriage as a pair of shackles, see the mores of society as beneath them, as not appyling to them, because they are ‘free spirits’, and thus, somehow above it all.”
I see the ties of marriage more as an umbrella of protection. Two people committed to faithfulness “til death do us part” share a security that those in a so-called “open” marriage will never have. They also are protected from a host of other negative influences (ie. STDs) that they could expose themselves and their partner to through their extra-marital dalliances.
If a person does not want to be “shakled” by the bonds of marriage, he/she should not enter into them in the first place. However, once a person commits to their spouse in marriage, I don’t think it’s okay to start an extra-marital affair of any kind.
J
Starshine, I like the umbrella imagery…see the pic on my header, of the couple under the umbrella? That was our wedding invitation. 🙂
I agree, if the ties and bonds of marriage are not for you, you shouldn’t be married. I have trouble with situations like Kvetch describes, where lying and cheating were right for him, but not for her…because to me, he should have talked to her, or gotten a divorce, not lied and cheated. But, Kvetch, you are right, and marriages are indeed, personal.
Michelle
An interesting question given the latest scandal with that crazy astronaut woman. It’s hard to say, it’s just so not me. I’m about as boring as it gets. No thrill-seeking here.
Wendy
Wow…this is a brain bender – and after reading curiousitykiller’s eloquent and thought-provoking comments, I won’t even attempt to try to string a coherent sentence together. I also find it hard to say why people do what they do – If someone who has an “artistic temperament” thinks that they are somehow above ‘social mores’, that is crap. But I do get what curiousity killer’s EXCELLENT point about artists being hyper-emotional people and therefore bending and breaking differently (More, Bigger, Harder, Worse, Whatever)….very interesting, J…
curiositykiller
“I don’t know what her husband’s actual psychological makeup is, because it is her journal, not something objective. I suspect he would kick her to the curb, however, because he would be pissed that he has to share his wife, sexually, with someone who she considers to be a MUCH better lover than he is, because she wants to be ‘conquered’, and Henry does this, while Hugo (husband) does not.”
Yeah, sounds like she was spoiled by a good man and needed
something soul-crushingsome soul-searching through sex.Great subject, J. Got me all fired up. Thanks!
Being cheated on (and lied to for years) is possibly the worst thing ex’s can do. On the other hand, being cheated on gives us the feeling of righteousness and entitles us to hate/forgive the cheater. It is anguish and hurtful, but it is also ultimate price for sainthood. Well… sometimes. I’m sorry for those who had to endure such tragedies.
I like that umbrella theory. Very endearing.
Lotus
Wow, this is a tough one, J. I think many people would, as you put it, like to experience more of life, more of the passions and dangers and all of that, but they are also cautious and would do little to jeopardize what they have already secured. I think the ones that take these huge risks live for the moment, it’s all about instant gratification for them and they never really worry about the consequences of those actions on the future. Unfortunately, the future does collect and many of them end up paying heavily for these indiscretions.
And thanks for the link to the Alice Pop-Up Book…that would be a wonderful book for any booklover’s collection. Thanks, J!
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