Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    I'd have been perfectly comfortable with that ad had Galaxy Gold been a
    condom rather than a chocolate bar.
    
    
    STD lecture warning: 
    
    When an individual has sex, s/he is having sex with not only his or her
    partner, but effectively with the partner's history of partners, and
    vice versa.  What may appear to be a simple, closed, triangle ... a
    lover on the side, is rarely so in terms of sexually transmitted
    disease.  
    
    mdh

    
    I agree with you.  However I've got an idea about how people
    could more properly advertise products which could be used
    as a result of infidelity.  How about you see that same woman in the
    bar, (without the chocolate).  She throws off her ring and is leads
    out some man 10 years younger.  The ad fades away and then back in
    to show her husband just outside wherever she is with that younger
    man.  He's carrying a Remmington semi-automatic rifle.  They show
    him aiming for her through the window and the phrase, "For those
    moments when your wife feels like being a little decadent!"
    (Then, of course, they'd run the same ad with the sexes reversed.)
    
    just kidding but I think that Saterday night live could have a field
    day with this!
    
    Rachael
    

        re .2,
        
>>				      The ad fades away and then back in
>>    to show her husband just outside wherever she is with that younger
>>    man.  He's carrying a Remmington semi-automatic rifle.
        
        Then he smiles and says, "It shoots so well, I bought the company!"
        
        Nah, that commercial wouldn't work.  They'd need a
        disclaimer that they don't mean all men.
        
        Dan
        

Playing devils advocate:

How can you know she is married?  A band on the ring finger of the left hand
does not necarsarily mean marriage.

I wear what is known as a russian wedding ring, and I am not married (hush jody)
If i was to go out to a bar to pick someone up, I probably would remove it, just
to avoid misconceptions.

grins,

clark.

    moi?  mum's the word....
    
    And as for infidelity - is it cheating if it's an open marriage?  What
    exactly is infidelity or adultery?  Is it your morals?  theirs?  the
    people participating?  those who find out?
    
    -Jody
    

    And what is an "Open Marriage"?
    the freedom to go to sleep with whomever one wishes?
    A marriage, when was instituted long time ago and before being degraded
    to current time conditions, used to be a SACRAMENT, something that
    lasted for life, something that was respected by all, including law,
    something that gave a security, a sense of conticuity, something that
    created families, traditions, and above all, a sense of belonging, a
    sense of well being, a marriage granted many benefits and securities,
    it granted lineage... I could go on and on, but there is no need.
    Jody, you ask what is infidelity or adultery... what is cheating...
    and the reason to these questions is that marriage has been so changed
    through all these years and through all our mistakes that we have lost
    the meaning of it!
    An adultery is when a person who is married sleeps with another person
    besides his/her married spouse.  Infidelity is the same to a lesser
    degree, (has sex with another when married) Adultery had to be proved
    and was an irreversible proof for divorce or resolution of a marriage,
    and cheating... is what is done everywhere, everytime, to everybody
    these days... we cheat so much that we even don't notice, we constantly
    cheat on honesty, we cheat on the time we dedicate to our family, we
    cheat on our morals, on the love to our parents... on the time we
    dedicate on them... we cheat on everything without knowing it because
    our society has put all those demands on us... we seem to accept
    everything we see, like the tv advertisement and like many other things
    that are constant part of our lives...
    
    

    re .-1
    
    here, here!

    re .6, I think there's a reason that things have changed in regard to
    marriage, and I think it's because those old-style, scared, monogamous
    marriages probably made a lot of people miserable for a long time. 
    It's about time people smartened up and realized that sometimes they
    can do what they want, instead of blindly following tradition.
    
    Lorna
    

    In Europe anyway, old fashioned scared monogamous marriages were
    largely the practice of the upper classes the aristocracy. Among
    the serfs marriage was a much loser affair, and often did not
    involve the clergy. The spread of what we now refer to 'old fashioned
    values' about marriage, came about largely as the result of the
    protestant revolution which 'christianized the lower classes' and
    spread the values given at least lip service by the aristocracy
    to the new middle class which adopted them. (Source my son's class
    on English history which I sat in on at Wesleyan University two years
    ago.)
    
    Bonnie

    re .9 >old fashioned scared monogamous marriageswere...
                          --
    
    Transposed characters ? Freudian slip ? Things that go bump in the
    night ?

    <scared>
    presumably that's "sacred"?

    and by a 'professional typist' yet
    Mmm
    

    
    re .9:
    
    Marriage did not become a sacrament of the Church until the 12 th
    century or thereabouts.
    
    However it was well established and the so called "old fashioned
    virtues" were the norm long before America was settled.
    
    True in Europe - and using European standards of historicity - they are
    not at all the norm of history. But in the time span that America uses
    they certainly are. Before America was born these standards were de
    rigeur.
    
    However I would dispute that the Protestant Revolution had anything to
    do with the matter - it is much more a matter of the decline of
    feudalism and the rise of the concept of individualism. A serf or
    feudal subject might need their liege lord's permission to marry -
    might indeed marry a spouse chosen by the liege - but the free citizen,
    whether Catholic or Protestant - made a free choice of marriage
    partner, and almost universally that choice was monogamous.
    
    /. Ian .\

    re .11, I'm not a "professional typist", Herb.  I don't think DEC has
    that as a job title.  I'm an admin secretary.
    
    But, yes, the idea of monogamous marriage is somewhat terrifying, isn't
    it?  Could I do it?  Would I even *want* to?  :-)
    
    Lorna
    

    re .13, scared to take what risk?  The risk of getting married or the
    risk of having an affair?  Both can be dangerous.
    
    Then again maybe I just made a meaningless typo.  
    
    Lorna
    

    Ian
    
    I realize that as an Englishman you are far more of an expert on
    the customs and morays of your society both past and present.
    
    However, the professor whose lecture I attended has made the
    development of the middle class from the serfs and peasants
    to be his speciality, which means I assume, he's done work with
    original documents etc.
    
    What he said was that marriages did indeed exist among the serf classes
    and they were largely for the purposes of getting children to work
    the farm or craft or what ever. However, he also stated that these
    relationships were not exclusive and it was generally understood
    that this was accepted.
    
    The acceptance of the 'puritanical morality' was largely the
    result of the protestant reformation, brining the offical moral
    standards of the church and the aristocracy to the serfs as
    they moved into the middle class. 
    
    The point that he was making was that the officially recorded history
    that we are aware of applied to only a small percent of the population
    until that time. A lot of the lower classes were only nominally
    Christian, for example, and practiced a mixture of old religion and
    Christianity. 
    
    Wesley, the founder of methodism, played a large role in this change
    in consciousness.
    
    Bonnie

Isn't adultery a legal definition? I thought it was actually illegal to commit
adultery but I don't have any facts to back that up.  Can you be arrested?

At any rate, the glory of marriage lasting a lifetime is dimmed by the view I've
had of some long time couples. Some of them seem to stay together because it's
easier to torment each other that way. 

On the other hand, I think the commercial was in poor taste. liesl

My sweetie Janice and I have been together now for almost fifteen years. We are
in a committed relationship, we love each other deeply, we plan to spend the
rest of our lives together. We are not monogamous. We've been living together
for well over ten years, married for three, and have a wonderful seven month old
baby. We are not heterosexual.

Anyone who implies that the only way to have a stable relationship and provide
a good environment for children is to be married, monogamous, and heterosexual
is being offensive to me personally. Probably just offensive to me as the idea
of adultery or infidelity is to them.

Our marriage IS a sacrament. It IS a lifetime commitment. It IS a framework for
a family. It just isn't monogamous.

I have found that the people who condemn "open marriages" usually don't really
KNOW much about real life "open marriages". They have a lot of preconcieved
ideas, but can't really imagine, much less understand how you can have a
committed relationship without also bringing along exclusivity. I personally
find that exclusivity often leads to feelings of possesiveness.

On the official topic at hand: People who complain about tasteless commercials
remind me of people who play in the mud then complain about being dirty...

	-- Charles

P.S. Infidelity *IS* fun! If it wasn't, people wouldn't *do* it.

> What were your reasons for marriage?

Our marriage was a public statement of our commitment in front of all of our
friends and relatives. They and we already knew it, but there's something
special about standing up there and SAYING it in front of all these people in
a ceremony. It's magical. When I saw Janice walking towards me and heard the
"Ode to Joy" - well, I cried. I still get teary-eyed thinking about it.

> What does marriage get you that living together does not?

A number of silly-assed advantages conferred by the state, and avoiding a larger
number of silly-assed restrictions imposed by various agencies on unmarried
couples. We talked a long time about getting married (as you might guess from
the fact that we lived together for 11 years before getting married) and what
finally decided us was that we had decided to have kids. Now I was (and am)
willing to have kids and raise them outside of the traditional structure of
marriage, but that confers significant disadvantages both legally and
societally. Now while *I* am willing to accept those disadvantages "to make a
statement" our marriage is a partnership, and we must also consider our
children. Janice preferred to be married, and I didn't feel strongly enough to
make an issue of it, though we certainly talked about it.

In fact though, you are right, as far as the relationship goes, marriage hasn't
changed much. I can remember talking to the minister the first time, where he
said "Now you realize that getting married is going to involve significant
changes in your lives and your relationship." Janice and I looked at each other
and laughed, I replied "In that case the wedding is off!" We then explained that
we had been living together for a long time, and didn't expect many changes at
all.

	-- Charles

    re .20
    <we are not monogamous>
    
    I take that to mean that you are sexually active with other people.
    Is that what you intended to communicate?

    re .-1
    
    tough

    Herb
    
    I feel that your comments come very close to the edge of being
    in violation of our 'I' message policy. You are welcome to
    express your�own personal beliefs but the way you are expressing
    them is not one that contributes to the harmony of the file.
    
    and 
    
    -d
    
    Your responses are close to the same vein.
    
    Would all of you please try and express yourselves in 'I' messages
    especialy when you deal with such emotionally sensitive topics.
    
    We all have a problem when we perceive we are being attacked on
    closely held personal�feelings. Let us all try and be sensitive
    on these issues.
    
    Bonnie
    speaking as a comoderator

    
    Sorry, haven't been able to get back here for a while.  Re - some of
    the past replies about marriage and infidelity - if you get married in
    the UK in church (as I did) and say the normal vows, you promise to
    "forsake all others" and "keep yourself only unto him/her" in the
    physical/sexual sense.  Therefore adultery/infidelity is breaking a
    promise you made to someone you love.  I don't know what sort of things
    you say in the US so I can't comment on that.
    
    Charles, re your comment about playing in the mud and then complaining
    about getting dirty - I have to watch the commercial to know what it's
    about!  I didn't know before I saw it that I was likely to think it's 
    in bad taste, whereas if I'm going to play in the mud I *know* I'm 
    likely to get dirty before I start.  And I was only expressing an
    opinion.
    
    Sam
    

    Bonnie:

    Traffic through MOMCAT has been congested all day so it has been difficult
    for me to get through.

    You said in 555.27 that I am skirting on the edge of violation of "I
    messages". Could you elaborate please...

    <I feel that your comments come very close to the edge of being
    <in violation of our 'I' message policy. You are welcome to
    <express your�own personal beliefs but the way you are expressing
    <them is not one that contributes to the harmony of the file.
    
    Frankly, I can't find any such expressions in 555.*
    Please post here those replies -whether from this discussion or
    some other- that you believe are at issue so that I can 

    o	apologize
    o	retract
    o	take under advisement
    o	defend
    as the case dictates

    thankyou
    
    herb
    

    Mmmm
    
    I wonder what impact "open marriages" have on matters like paternity?
    (Well there ARE genetic tests that can be done to determine who the
    father REALLY is. On the other hand maybe that doesn't matter?)
    
    I wonder whether an adult in an "open marriage" would extend that
    openness to an adult offstring of the same sex.
    e.g. if a woman is willing to share her husband with another woman
    why not share her adult daughter with another man?
    Certainly there is no issue of incest (or IS there?)
    
    			herb

herb -

"share her adult daughter with another man"  do you mean that the (presumably
of age daughter) can bring her current lover home for the night, in the open,
with parental consent??

or do you mean that mom and duaghter would share the same man?
At the same time?
Or at seperate times?

Enquiring minds want to know...

grins,

clark.

ps ( one is likely to be incestous, one isn't, and the third might be...)

    re .20 & .22, well, I liked your replies.  I think a lot of problems
    have been caused in relationships because our society tries to tell
    people that the only way someone can really be special to another
    person is through sexual exclusivity.
    
    Lorna
    

    share at separate times (which presumably is the way the open marriage
    is being conducted)
    
    But if push comes to shove, i spose I would wonder whether an adult
    offspring ought to be able to share in whatever way the parents are
    sharing. (Assuming that compunctions around incest are taken care of,
    if there are any such compunctions)
    
    I must say that it isn't particularly clear to me, what would motivate
    such a person to have 'typical societal values' with respect to
    offspring.
    
    e.g.
    In general, one of MY values is that I don't think I would want to do
    anything that I wouldn't want my children to do. I wouldn't want my 20
    year old daughter to share my wife's lover. But then, I wouldn't want
    my wife to have a lover either. So for me its easy.
    But if somehow one were able to convince me that my wife should have a
    lover, I think I would have trouble finding the logic necessary to
    argue strenuously that it would be inappropriate for Jenny to share him
    on -say- alternate nights.

    and if my idea of an open marriage extended to SIMULTANEOUS sharing,
    how would I be able to justify the exclusion of my offspring. Where do
    I find the moral/ethical authority to prevent me from engaging in such
    a sharing with my daughter. I mean what the hell, if fidelity is just a
    word, what more than 'just' a word is incest?

    I'm confused.  Probably it is because I see a daughter as part of
    a *family* but NOT as part of a *marriage*.  I.e., only the two
    spouses are parts of the marriage.
    
    						Ann B.

    
    To each his/her own.  If you want sexual exclusivity and both partners
    agree, fine.  If you want an "open marriage" and both partners agree,
    fine.
    
    The problem occurs when there is a difference of opinion on the
    subject.  
    
    Lisa

    re .36
    That feels like nit picking Ann
    'Open marriage' is just words.
    
    I don't understand what moral/ethical structure allows the sharing of
    an adult spouse but would NOT allow the sharing of an adult offspring.

Herb,

What *is* clear from your notes is that, as you say, you don't really understand
open marriages. As you might imagine, there are degrees of openness. Just as I
wouldn't go out and buy a car without serious discussion with my partner,
neither would either of us take a lover without serious discussion with my
partner. After all, lovers are (or should be) much more important than cars!
Openness is not (in our case) license.

The issue of children is entirely orthogonal, especially adult children. If when
my son is an adult, he decides he is attracted to one of Janice or my lovers,
well that's up to them (and us - after all we ARE lovers). It would be a very
complicated situation but I feel confident that as adults we would deal with it.
What problem do you anticipate?

I found your analogy somewhat flawed, you say that if you thought it was ok
for your wife to have a particular lover, how could you feel it was wrong for
your daughter. That's good so far, but the flaw is in the converse - if you
feel that it is only right for your wife to have sex with you, does that say
anything about how you feel about your daughter's sexual partners? No, it
doesn't, and likewise I don't feel that who my lovers are has any a-priori
bearing on my children's love life.

I have to go home now and be with my sick kid and sweetie. More later.

	-- Charles

    re .37, exactly, I agree.  It's between the two people and the problem
    occurs if they disagree.
    
    re .35, I don't understand what you are trying to say.  I think open
    marriage (and open SO relationships) and incest are two completely
    different things.  If I were in an open marriage or relationship and
    occasionally had sex with someone other than my SO, that doesn't mean I
    would ever have sex with my own daughter, or that I would want her to
    have sex with one of my lovers, any more than I would want one of my
    girlfriends to have sex with one of my lovers.  I don't understand your
    reasoning.  Just because I think it's okay to have multiple sex
    partners doesn't mean I'd want to have sex with my own kid, or to have
    my kid have sex with one of my sex partners!
    
    As for my daughter and I ever sharing the same lover....only if it's
    Bono! :^)  (sorry to be flippant, but he's the only man I can think of
    that we'd both want!)
    
    Lorna
    

    Herb,
    
    What *are* you talking about...how can you "share you daughter"?  You
    don't *own* your daughter, she isn't yours to share!!!  I don't follow
    you!  You have no right to tell your adult daughter who she can or
    can't sleep with, anyway.
    
    What's the problem?  If two people want a nonexclusive relationship,
    who says the kids are involved?  What business is it of theirs?
    
    Many (most, in my experience) "open relationships" have restrictions on
    the nature of the openness.  For instance, some people say "We can
    have sex with other people but not get emotionally attached" or "We can
    have sex with other married people but not single people" or "We can
    have sex with people of the same gender but not opposite" or "We can
    have sex with other people only with the explicit permission of our
    partner" or "People who are friends of our partner are off-limits" etc.
    If you wanted an open relationship, but would feel uncomfortable if
    your wife and your daughter shared a lover, then you could say "Don't
    sleep with someone Jenny is sleeping with."  What's so hard about that?
    
    I fail to see how nonexclusivity has anything whatsoever to do with
    incest.
    
    Your tone is judgemental and condemning.
    
    D!
    
    [PS: I imagine that the parents and children sharing lovers problem is
    extremely rare.  how many people have you met who would be attracted to
    their parents lovers?]

    Re .38: What does "just words" mean? Everything we write can be called
    that, but it doesn't seem to serve any purpose. (If you simply meant
    that the terms have to be defined by those discussing them, then I
    agree.)
    
    As for the difference between sharing a spouse and sharing a child
    ("sharing" meaning "having sexual relations with"), the main difference
    I see is the biological one; the reason incest (between consenting,
    adult blood-relatives - I'm not considering any non-consenting stuff)
    is taboo is that it increases the risk of genetic defects in the
    offspring. If the activities participated in don't involve a risk of
    pregnancy, then frankly I don't see any reason why one shouldn't share
    whomever one wants to. [Again, providing *everybody* is aware of the
    situation and agrees to the relationships, and, ideally, there aren't
    any "power plays" going on.]
    
    "what moral/ethical structure allows the sharing of an adult spouse but
    would NOT allow the sharing of an adult offspring" - a structure that
    states that partners in a sexual relationship may specify who is and is
    not an acceptable partner for either/both of them. If both parties
    agree to exclude the blood relatives of either, I see no moral
    inconsistency.
    
    Now, would all this work out in practice? Not often, I expect; heck,
    the success rate for traditional relationships isn't all that great!
    Even in traditional marriages, there are unspoken agendas, assumptions
    made by one partner but never voiced to the other, and feelings that
    may not even be admitted by the person who feels them; and if one
    partner acts in a way that's not in keeping with those hidden things,
    the other may feel betrayed. How much more complex would it get with
    multiple partners, each of whom might place a different interpretation
    on "the agreement," no matter how specific it is?
    
    Anyway, while it isn't exactly my cup of tea, the idea of an open
    relationship doesn't bother me. I don't know how well I'd be able to
    handle it myself, since I find it hard to imagine wanting any other
    partners while in a relationship, but one never knows...
    
    -b

    Re .41: and the "parents and children sharing lovers" - actually, I've
    heard of such attractions quite often, usually along the lines of "he
    ditched me to marry my daughter," or "my girlfriend ran away with my
    father". (How many of those would have made successful open
    relationships may be left as an imaginative exercise for the reader.)
    
    Besides, what about the lovers of ones' siblings? Wouldn't they tend to
    be of similar age and interests to ones' own? [Then again, thinking
    back - maybe not! ;-)]
    
    -b

    I must admit, this is the first Note I have read, that really has my
    head spinning.....I don't know WHAT to think about any of it....Have
    to read it over again, and maybe it will make some sense to me....So
    far, it just sounds like a bunch of b.s. to me, but I'll read it again
    and see if it makes more sense.....
    
    Sitting here shaking my head.....
    
    B

    Early in this string, someone (maybe it was Lorna?) said monogamous
    marriages may have made a lot of people miserable for a long time. 
    I wonder if (although this is probably rathole stuff) people are
    less miserable, or happier, under the, the, the new rules? new lack of
    rules? whatever you call it.  No, this probably isn't very rathole-ish
    since I don't know how such happiness/misery could be determined.
    
    A friend of mine frequently remarks that "the grass is always greener
    on the other side of the fence."  I think there's quite a lot of truth 
    in that saying, pithily expressed (good old, I think, Aesop).  That is,
    whatever I complain of, I don't have far to search to find someone or
    several suggesting that s/he/theyl would love that very thing, and
    complaining in her/his/their turn about something that sounds pretty 
    good to me, at least at the time...
    
    I haven't seen the commercial in .0, and would prefer a look at the
    [imaginary] Remington ones anyway.
               
    aq
    

I have to echo D!'s opinion -- the concept of "sharing your wife" implies
that you are the active person in the situation and you're just
handing over the object (your wife) to be shared.  The open relationships
I know of don't have that concept of ownership of one party by another --
the individuals decide on the rules of their relationship, and then
decide on their own outside activities.

A daughter and her sexual life have nothing to do with the parents
relationship with each other.  If your grown daughter has a relatinoship
with someone, do you look at it as you "sharing" her?  Or as
her having a relationship of her own?  And what does that have to do with your
relationship with your partner?

	MKV

    
    well put, d! and mary
    

Incidentally adultery is still a crime in Britain - at least for priests.

A Church of England Vicar was found guilty of 5 counts of adultery by a
church court yesterday and "deprived of his living" (aka 'unfrocked') as
a consequence.

/. Ian .\

re .18:

I see what you are driving at - perhaps it is just a matter of semantics - or
perhaps I have missread some of my background reading. However the scenario
you paint seems to be closer to my understanding of feudal France or the Holy 
Roman Empire than of Medieval England. 

My perception is that whilst this sort of behaviour was common in those areas 
until Lutheran and Calvinist influences they hard largely disappeared from 
England by the reign of Henry IV (late 12th century) - a good hundred years 
before Henry VIII brought Protestantism to England.

My medieval history is fairly broadly read but I only claim "expert" status
on certain aspects of the development of the squirearchy from feudal men-at-arms
and some aspects of military history.

/. Ian .\

    I have decided it would not be productive for me to participate in
    this discussion. (I wish I had made a similar decision at a similar
    point in time in the S & M discussion in V2)
    
    
    
    				h

    Re: .51
    
    Well Dick, from my point of view you did pretty well, but focussed a
    lot more on "marriage" than "relationships". Your description of
    traditional marriage matches mine, but the types of non-traditional
    marriages I know of are quite a bit wider than the alternatives you've
    described. My view is that rather than being an alternative to
    traditional marriage, I think the definition of traditional marriage is
    changing. Once upon a time divorce was unthinkable, then it became
    shameful, and now it's quite common. The institution of marriage has
    changed - some would say for the worse. Given the breakdown of
    traditional marriages, some people are looking for alternatives that
    provide the emotional and structural advantages of traditional marriage
    while either avoiding the disadvantages or improving upon the
    advantages. Other people advocate a return to the traditional marriage
    in order to recapture it's advantages. Unfortunately for some of us,
    that alternative isn't available - traditional marriages are by
    definition heterosexual. If you decide that the things that make
    marriage good for heterosexuals are just as germane to lesbians and
    gays, then, like me, you are forced to the conclusion that traditional
    marriage needs *some* kind of changes. Not everyone believes the
    premise though, and so rejects the conclusion.
    
    I come at it from a slightly different tack. My view was (and is) that
    marriage as an instituion is suspect. It seemed to me that many people
    got married way too early, and that the pressures of being married in
    fact drove apart people that ought to have been perfectly happy
    together. Further, I believe that if you want to be monogamous, you
    should and can CHOOSE that freely and independently of marriage. If you
    are in a committed relationship and decide with your partner that you
    want to be monogamous - that's great! But I saw many many people who
    did not admit to themselves that they really DIDN'T want to be
    monogamous, but thought they ought to want to be, and tried to use
    marriage to force themselves to "be good". It rarely worked. I also saw
    many many children devastated by the breakup of their parent's
    marriage. The institution that was supposed to nurture children was
    injuring them. Some of my friends, braver than most, decided to have
    children on their own, to raise them without a partner from the start.
    Many of these children seemed to me to be happier than the children in
    dirvorced households. The children in stable traditional marriages were
    happier still, as were children in other stable relationships.
    Stability seemed the key.
    
    So Janice and I set out realizing that unrealistic expectations were
    what seemed to be killing our friends' relationships, and to be very
    clear-eyed and practical about what we expected. We sit down and talk
    about what we'd like, and what we honestly think we can do. We
    negotiate, we push each other's limits. We did this BEFORE we got
    married - when at any time either of us could "just call the whole
    thing off" with no more hassle than moving. We stayed together then
    because WE WANTED TO not because we ought to, and because we realized
    that we were both in the relationship because we wanted to be, we were
    willing to make compromises, and to work at things, and to listen to
    each other - because if we didn't there was nothing else that would
    make it work. We couldn't get complacent, we couldn't take things for
    granted.
    
    It worked for us - and if marriage was going to change it "The wedding
    is off!" :-)
    
    	-- Charles

    Fascinating string!
    
    BTW, I know that Colorado has no adultery law, ie, one cannot use
    infidelity as a reason for divorce.  I would guess that many still
    have one (as ridiculous as sodomy laws, IMO).
    
    Gene

    Adultery is still on the books as a crime in quite a number of states.
    Most states will decline to prosecute under it, however, Connecticut
    will prosecute if a complaint is brought.  There are several cases
    pending in CT right now.  From what I've seen and read, it would appear
    that in most cases the complaints were filed as retribution by the
    "wronged" spouse and/or to get leverage in the divorce actions.
    
    I've reached a point in my life where I know and understand what is
    right for me.  I've also reached a point where I know and understand
    that I don't have the vagues idea what is right for someone else.  I
    know that I am monogamous, and, knowing that I should be looking for
    someone who also KNOWS that monogamy is what his right for him.  But,
    I also accept that there are other people for whom monogamy doesn't
    work.  They need to find partners who also KNOW that monogamy isn't
    what they want or need.
    
    I think that before partners can truly agree on the type of
    marriage/relatinship they want, each of them has to be really clear
    about their own wnats and needs.  That isn't always as easy said as
    done.
    
    Polly 

    Re: .56
    
    I think we agree. One thing I didn't make clear, but is very important
    to Janice and I is that our relationship is paramount. Even our
    relationship(s) with our children are secondary. Someday the children
    will be grown and independent - we will still have each other. Likewise
    any relationship with a lover is secondary. We will do nothing to
    endanger our relationship, and one of our "rules" is that our
    (hypothetical) lover realizes this.
    
    I feel like I've talked more than enough about my personal life in a
    forum that's not entirely safe for me. I think I'll go back to
    generalities for a while...
    
    	-- Charles

    
    I feel like I've talked more than enough about my personal life in a
    forum that's not entirely safe for me. I think I'll go back to
    generalities for a while...
    
This whole string was interesting; Charles, you & Janice sound like a special 
people. I can't really describe why I write that, but reading your notes just
made me feel good.

      In South Carolina it is illegal to commit adultery, but almost no one
    is arrested for it.  They generally handle it in Family Court.
    
    
                               

    Re .59
    
    Reminds me of a one-time popular TV series ...ALL IN THE FAMILY.
    
    
    Don
    *8-)