How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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which “ polite adultery ” is the most desirable solution of a vicious marital problem, but these cases are a negligible minority. In most cases of adultery, whether committed by husband or wife, the partner who breaks his vows is punishing his mate and simultaneously expressing his sexual superiority. If a man is unfaithful to his wife, or impotent with his wife and potent with his mistress, as is so often the case, the psychological meaning is : “ You are insufficient for me. I must seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere.” When a wife commits adultery she is usually expressing her rebellion against the imposition of her husband’s false masculine authority. Her adultery expresses not only her rebellion, but also her superiority. In her eyes her husband is degraded as a cuckold when he is deceived. When a husband deceives his wife he is usually exonerated as “just one of the boys ”, whereas a man who is deceived by his wife is just as generally regarded as an inferior and inadequate husband. Even in adultery we find evidence of the existence of masculine dominance. Tragedies of Sexual Competition Were we to remove the discussion of the various forms of sexual competition from our newspapers, novels, and films, there would hardly be a theme left for these purveyors of current moods in sexual ethics. So long as we have had a written word, there have been descriptions of the struggle for supremacy between the sexes. Some readers may be led to believe that psychologists are advocating a very drab world in which all forms of sexual competition are removed, with a consequent minimizing of the stimulus to much of the aesthetic gratification of modern life. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We believe in competition as a natural stimulus to human growth, but most of the sexual competition of our day is not only unnecessary, but so damaging to mental health that the competitors come out of the struggle to establish