the monogamy fallacy

Do you agree? What say you?

The monogamy fallacy
C L Lilles Updated April 01, 2009 12:00 AM

I was watching the March 26 episode of NBC’s Today Show with Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford and chanced upon the segment called “Guys Tell All,” wherein random women on the streets of America asked a panel of men questions about the opposite sex. On the panel that day were four distinguished gentlemen from different fields — renowned Australian chef Curtis Stone; New York comedian Rick Younger; Philadelphia comic and radio personality Chuck Nice; and author of the book Decoding Love, Andrew Tree.
Predictably, one of the questions thrown to the panel was, “Why do married men cheat even when they’re happily married?”
The first to answer was comedian Rick Younger. He said, “First of all, monogamy and commitment aren’t the same thing. Monogamy can be the by-product of commitment but there are guys who can be committed and yet say, ‘I love you; I’m going home to you but I can’t be monogamous.’”
But what gripped me as I watched the exchanges among the four male panelists was the reply of radio personality Chuck Nice. He said, while staring straight into the camera, “Please listen, all of you out there, women and men alike, there’s only one reason why men cheat, period. It’s called failure of character. That’s it! End of story!”
I sat there in front of the TV, stunned at his brazen indictment of his own gender. I thought to myself, this man may not reach home alive; he just might be mobbed or stoned the moment he gets out of the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center.
I also thought he should have quit immediately after that first incriminating statement but he was on a roll. He continued emphatically and with all the confidence of a seasoned statesman, “If you cheat, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the worst guy in the world. We all have character failings. But the root cause of infidelity is a failure of character.”
So, then, is monogamy a fallacy? Yes. It is an ideal, which makes it certainly conceivable, but most ideals are hard to find in real life. Those who succeed at monogamy are the exceptions — the heroes.
Let’s now go back to the issue of whether cheating is a “failure of character.” I have seen married men who are serial cheaters with a ticker tape of successive girlfriends attached to their names, yet they still remain unapologetic and unrelenting. I have also seen good men with unquestionable characters, who in moments of weakness, have fallen hard for other women and loved them as well. I have also seen well-intentioned husbands who have had to endure loveless marriages to monster wives but persist in the union for the sake of the children; these men sometimes pursue extra-marital affairs to make their lives tolerable.
And then there was this video on YouTube of married TV actor Eddie Cibrian and his alleged girlfriend, married country singer Leann Rimes, captured by security cameras in a restaurant as they were out to dinner. I watched it recently and was touched by the tenderness between the couple. Theirs was no cheap, sleazy, illicit coupling; there seemed to be a real connection; there seemed to be real affection. So is it really a matter as simple as “failure of character”?