The sanctity of marriage is no longer in jeopardy. It’s not that our society has regained a respect for the institution; we’ve stopped caring about it at all. Nothing has changed about people’s behavior or the problem of infidelity since biblical days but I’ll be damned if the media hasn’t numbed our social reaction to unfaithful behavior.
Earlier generations experienced many of the same marital problems. If you’ve seen “Goodfellas,” you know that Friday night was for the girlfriends and Saturday night was for the wives. Infidelity or cheating didn’t just suddenly appear with computers and discreet dating sites like AshleyMadison.com (their slogan: “Life is short. Have an affair.”)
In comparison to prior generations like the “Leave it to Beaver” era, we’re oversaturated, overexposed to the media’s dismissal or censure of marriage—pornography, “Ashley Madison Affair Guarantee,” Hollywood, etc.
You wait in line to buy groceries for your family dinner and consume all the “Whose Cheating on Who?” data in the sensationalist tabloids. Shelves previously occupied by TIME magazine and The New Yorker now display US Weekly and the Enquirer, the unfaithful celebrities (read: social model) plastered on their covers.
Due to this media overexposure, we think cheating is as common and normal as any other daily activity. This repeated exposure to SOMEONE CHEATING desensitizes us, disintegrates the fabric of who we are. It’s the numbing of our hands before the rest of the body enters paralysis.
“Snow White” used to move audiences to tears when it first hit theaters back in 1937. It is now nothing more than an outdated children’s movie.
We absorb so much sensory data about people cheating until it is less than a risk at marriage—it’s an expectation or adult rite of passage. We see infidelity and react like deer in the headlights.
Think about when the written word was the predominant means of social communication. Infidelity was still around, even in literature but socially accepted literature showed men actually desiring their wives (and vice versa).
Consider a man who was raised in a time when his only idea of a woman’s body came from his wife. Pornography has washed away that sole admiration of a spouse.
Or how about commercials and motion pictures? Pick any commercial that targets men such as a beer or hair dye commercial. The single man with a Miller Lite in his hand gets the girl. Beer marks his manliness and ensures his success in “scoring” the blonde at the bar.
In Hollywood movies, it is much worse. “The Hangover,” “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Old School,” “50 First Dates” are all perfect examples of “miserable married men.” The main character is a single man falling in love, advised by his married best friend to avoid the horrors of having sex with one woman.
Donald Trump cheats on his wife and we give him a reality show. Eliot Spitzer gets with prostitutes and after bad publicity (which doesn’t exist), we give him a round table talk show on CNN. It doesn’t make a difference to us as a society anymore.
