Hello all you MBers!

Some of you may remember me as NotSure from last year. Passed my D-Day anniversary and things have been up and down but suffice it to say WH is now a FWH, shows true remorse, appears to want nothing more than to make me happy. We have not discussed the A in many months. I think things are going well but I will probably never feel secure again, and I'm ok with that. (BTW I recently had to take a training on Trauma for my job, and interestingly enough, all the techniques they mentioned for dealing with trauma, I used them all!).

So anyway I'm hoping to graduate in the spring with a bachelor's and I'm taking this one last general requirement, ethics class. We have to do a research paper due in a few weeks so I figured I'd do mine on adultery laws. The bigger questions are: Does society have an interest in creating laws that regulate private moral behavior? Is adultery private or public (in as much as it is a violation of a publically affirmed relationship?)? Does society have an interest or obligation to regulate adultery?

I really would love to be able to talk with someone who has used adultery laws and find out how that turned out, the impact it had.

I haven't started researching yet but I know that recently there was something about a woman filing for a lawsuit in Alabama, and also something else involving an American Idol singer. I need to have information on child neglect statistics, suicide statistics, etc. related to adultery if there are any. I know there must be some information because I read about all these on this SAA forum, but the threads are buried. I don't want people to do the work for me but if anyone knows of a good article or can point me to the right thread... that would be greatly appreciated!

Any feedback or suggestions would also be greatly appreciated...

I need to get going now but I'll check back sometime on Sunday or Monday. Going out with hubby in a bit then working most of the weekend.

Researching

My older daughter teaches ethics at a major university. She's interesting to talk with, because for her, ethics involves everything.


What have I learned from her?

It has to do with the concept of the marriage, and what marriage actually IS.

Marriage being a public, legal, personal, and sometimes (but not always) religious agreement between two people: there is NO "private" behavior. Because both parties have agreed to become one, under the law and under the concept of the covenant of marriage, the idea of holding privacy out as a means to fail to disclose harmful or hurtful information to the spouse is a violation of the "self" - the marriage.


An affair violates the very ethics of the self when considering marriage as the union of two people into "one". It is a self-betrayal of the first order.



SB

Researching,

I don't suppose you intend to do this, but I think it would be unethical for you to use experiences contained in threads here as evidence for your research, without the permission of the original poster.

It would also be a good idea for you to ask JustUss to seek Dr Harley's clearance. These would be great questions for a discussion thread, but if there is any possibility of forum responses informing your research, then I think you should seek permission, as a courtesy measure

I don't know about the ethics of this, but I can't imagine any BS would have a problem with contributing. I think you're on the wrong forum - maybe the Divorced one?

Researching,

Perhaps you could set up an separate email account that would allow those interested in this to contact you off of the site. I liked the suggestion of checking with Justuss and/or Dr. Harley.

JL

SugarCane, you're right, I don't intend to use personal experiences from threads. What I meant by when I spoke of threads was these threads that pop up from time to time when something comes up in the news, and people want to talk about it and they provide these links to newspaper articles. These links are what I'm looking for.

I need to have solid sources to use for my paper. Which means books, articles, journals, etc. Or interviews with actual people. So that's what I meant when I said it would be great if I could get to talk with an actual person who was willing to share their identity, through emails, not on these forums. I would NEVER use personal experience from posters here without their knowledge and permission.

Thanks for bringing this up -- I realize I wasn't being clear enough.

I only posted those questions to give people an idea of what I was looking for. I never intended for people to give me answers. I was only looking for information, inspiration, ideas of where I could go investigating. That's all.

Thank you, schoolbus - I'm going to look into how state and federal laws define marriage and use that as part of the basis for my paper. I hadn't thought of that. There must be some kind of definition somewhere, because marriage is recognized by law.

Hey Notsure, I haven't read the other responses, but Dr Harley covers the history of adultery laws in his book Defending Traditional Marriage. He is very interested in that subject too. Additionally, you might be able to get some input from him by emailing his radio show.

Good luck!