"Thou shalt not commit adultery," read the words on the tablet. Leviticus 20:10 pronounced the penalty: "If a man commits adultery with the wife of a neighbor, both the adulterer and adulteress shall be put to death."
But what did "wife" mean? Did it mean property? Or beloved?
When Moses presented this commandment to the people, what was their idea of marriage? Did they already believe it to be somehow sacred? Were they being reminded or was this a revelation — that having sex with another's spouse was a bad idea?
We do know that in 1215, more than 2,000 years after the Ten Commandments were written, the Roman Catholic Church made marriage a sacrament, a source of special grace. Before then, the marriage bond was not necessarily considered permanent — though women usually were not allowed to remarry after a divorce and men were. In the years between Moses and the sacrament, the Quran had been transcribed, and it also prohibited adultery and recommended stoning for both of the erring parties.
Reading the history of the sexiest sin, you can't help noticing that adultery used to carry greater penalties than it does today.
Today the catechism of the Catholic Church says marriage cannot be dissolved and "by its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable fidelity of the spouses." And a 1994 survey, published by the University of Chicago Press, found that 90 percent of Americans believe sexual infidelity is "always" or "almost always" wrong.
In reality, though, half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce, and adultery is cited as the leading cause of divorce. Cited in surveys, that is — adultery is not cited in divorce courts, not anymore.
There is a Utah statute that allows a judge to take adultery into account when distributing marital property. But a local divorce attorney says he has only seen one adulterer lose property for the offense. In that case the adulterer lied in court, denying to the judge that he had fathered a child by his mistress. "Judges don't like to be lied to," noted the attorney.
Of course, spouses don't either. An article in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2004 reported that the discovery of adultery often results in a trauma to the spouse equal to the trauma experienced in a natural disaster, war or other catastrophe.
Painful, but common, that's adultery today. So when modern Americans say adultery is "wrong," do they mean it is a biblical "sin" or that it is messy on a secular level?
"Both," says Tom McClenahan, academic dean, Salt Lake Theological Seminary. He says happily ever after is the ideal for all.
Stephen Clark, president of Salt Lake Valley Atheists, says, "I don't think atheists are any less likely to be faithful to their marriage partners." A promise is a promise, no matter who makes it, he says.
But Clark does wonder whether atheists who commit adultery feel less guilty than do religious people who commit adultery. "Atheists don't feel God is watching," he notes. And he suspects that atheists are less bothered by the divorce trends, are more liberal and more willing to accept that cultural mores are always evolving.
For believers, fidelity does take on another dimension, McClenahan says. He says the scriptures see something sacred underlying the intimacy, trust and committedness of marriage. "This kind of mutual giving in a very exclusive way is an analogy of the eternal-self giving. It reflects the character of God, from a Christian perspective."
In marriage, he says, humans live out the relationship between the Creator and the created, so to betray that relationship is breaking something human and also something larger. "It is like taking something that was painted by a master and slashing it."
In the end, religious people believe that God forgives. Perhaps knowing God's forgiveness helps humans to forgive as well. Or at least that's how Mark Butler sees it.
Butler, a marriage counselor and associate professor at the Brigham Young University school of family life, describes the joy of seeing couples come through infidelity. "You see something that was very sacred become sacred again," he says.
Righteous indignation has to be part of the process, he says. Not vengeful anger, but righteous indignation.
A partner must be able to say, "What you did was wrong. You hurt me. I need you as my intimate, covenant partner. I love you and I have a divine nature and I ought not to be treated this way." Such expressions of loving indignation open the door for healing, he says. "Without hope and faith, there is no motive for action," Butler adds. The spouses must believe healing and forgiveness are possible.
Another BYU professor, David Dollahite, recently finished a study of how faith helps couples stay faithful. Dollahite and Nathaniel Lambert of Florida State University spoke at length with 57 couples — Christians, Jews and Muslims — who considered themselves deeply faithful and who had been married for more than 20 years.
He and Lambert don't believe religion grants immunity from adultery, Dollahite says. However, previous studies have linked church attendance with lower rates of adultery, and he and Lambert wanted to know more, to go beyond the attendance records.
The couples in the study reported setting aside "sacred" time to spend together and said they thought their marriages were happier for the sacred time. And, they said, being happy makes it easier to be faithful.
A Jewish wife talked about leaving all the stresses of the week behind during the Sabbath. A Muslim man told of making a pilgrimage to Mecca with his wife. He talked of holding her hand as they circled the Ka'ba.
Then, too, the couples said they believe God would be displeased if they cheated on their spouse. A Methodist said he and his wife took a vow to care for each other through all of life's surprises. He took the vow in front of God — and also in front of her family, he noted. He said all 10 of her brothers witnessed his vows, which also helps him to be faithful.
E-mail: susan@desnews.com