Sells and runner

Nice try attempting to pillory woman including Susie.

That is typical of doddery but evil old men of the Church.

You are irrelevant and old fashioned while disregarding the mounting evidence of pain and suffering that the Churches inflict on trusting congregations and kids in their care.

I suppose you excuse Pell?

Pete

"However, the extent of marital breakdown in our time has got to be caused by something, perhaps it is because we do not understand marriage like we used to."

I don't think we are far enough along yet to really have a handle on that but some thoughts.
- We are still in transition, it takes quite a lot of time to establish new patterns and for them to work well.
- It is difficult to tell from afar just how good those marriages were for those in them. Just because people could not get out of a bad marriage does not imply that substantially more succeeded into turning those marriages into a healthy place to be.
- We are not yet free (and perhaps won't be for a long time) of the churches influence on perceptions of morality, sexuality, guilt etc. Influences that may once have played a largely beneficial role in primitive societies without birth control and where stability was important for survival. The choices people make have changes but elements of those past influences still distort the way people deal with it. Sex is still used for power, to hurt, people may engage in sex outside traditional boundaries and yet feel an unacknowledged guilt based on old values rather than any actual harm done.
- Perceptiins of what marriage can be are still very much influenced traditional values even when its not what people actually live, that disconnect is damaging and its not necessarily the different choices people make thats the real problem.

R0bert

Runner, can you ever post anything without using your favorite word 'dogma'?
Gee it get's boring...

Sells, men have been trading in women for a 'new model' (younger) forever, not just these days.
It just seems like there is more of this sort of behaviour now because there is a much bigger population and society seems to accept it more.
The difference now is that if women are unhappy in their relationships then they too can move on and not have to leave a marriage with nothing, like the good ol' days.

Even so, if the woman leaves her husband for another man, well she must be a slut, whereas if the man leaves, the wife must have done something wrong.
We still have some way to go towards equality in society yet.

One thing the article doesn't mention - mainly because it wasn't the article's intent to do so - is that Updike loathed women.

As with all philandering men, his gynaphilia was driven by a combination of contempt for women as the inferiors of men (thus deserving of men's sexual and domestic exploitation of them) and an intellectually crippling fear of women's untapped power.

As hatred and fear of women are the two pillars of all monotheistic religions, it's a no-brainer that Updike would be a paid-up, card-carrying member of the universal order of god-botherers.

In case anybody here has failed to notice, I absolutely detest the writings of John Updike!

Killarney,

Interesting slant, that philanderers hate women. As a wishful-thinking philanderer, I LOVE women: if there actually is a God, I have no trouble believing that they are Her/His most wonderfully perfect creation.

As for adultery, it's not illegal, one can be one if one has the opportunity and inclination. It's a bit like being a bigot or a drunkard: it can't be legislated against. But in that sense, to paraphrase, George Brandis, everyone has the right, by default, to commit adultery.

That doesn't necessarily mean that a person should commit adultery, I'm sure it causes more problems than it's worth. But as so many novelists have discovered to their material benefit, how (and why) should it be prevented ?

Sorry a bit OTT: Updike wrote some very entertaining material, and seems to have striven to atone for his weaknesses as we all should, but I don't think he was any better or worse than the average Joe.

loudmouth

'I LOVE women: if there actually is a God, I have no trouble believing that they are Her/His most wonderfully perfect creation.'

In my view, that actually CONFIRMS my point about philanderers despising women. That's classic objectification.

In fact, all the philanderers I've known DO see women as perfect and beautiful creations, which is why they are repeatedly drawn to having serial love affairs with them.

Then, once the passion subsides - and it always does because it's based on shallow illusion - the philanderer goes into full-fledged retreat, lamenting that the object of his affections became 'too needy', 'too demanding', 'too insecure', 'too possessive' yada yada.

These of course are all euphemisms for 'too human', which is the one thing a gynaphile will NEVER allow any woman to be. Serial philandering is really all about control.

Certainly, some women are serial philanderers (and I've know a few). However, as patriarchal societies are based on male control over women, the overwhelming majority of serial philanderers are men.