He was a doctor, 47 years old. He had a successful orthopedic practice and a nearly full head of hair. Many women found him quite attractive, and vice versa.
But his string of extramarital affairs did not merit so much as a mention in his messy divorce proceedings late last year--not even when the doctor's most recent girlfriend turned up to cheer him on in the courtroom, beaming and visibly pregnant.
"It was adultery and it meant nothing," said the doctor's former wife. In the courtroom and even among many of her own acquaintances, she said, "I don't think it was taken seriously."
As recently as a generation ago, adultery was a source of major social opprobrium. But many Americans now seem to have adopted a more casual attitude--at least when it happens to someone else. While adultery causes grief and trauma for those involved, changing attitudes may have made society and the legal system more tolerant.
Some of the experts--lawyers, therapists, sociologists--say adultery almost seems like an everyday event. Los Angeles celebrity divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson says infidelity is so widespread that judges in divorce cases barely blink when extramarital sex is involved. A recent adultery case in Wisconsin was considered such a novelty that the litigants found themselves bathed in the glare of media spotlights.
Of course, virtually no one advocates adultery. In fact, a majority of those surveyed in national polls continue to voice strong disapproval.
A 1989 survey from the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University showed 87% of 3,000 respondents describing extramarital sex as "always wrong" or "almost always wrong."
But opinions expressed in a survey are one thing, and everyday life is another. "Everyone publicly will say they are against affairs, but privately they will say something else," says New York psychotherapist Marcella Weiner.
"It is considered something that happens," says Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington and the author of a book called "Couples" about marital behavior. Someone who commits adultery is no longer considered to be "morally bankrupt," Schwartz says.
When asked about changing attitudes, experts frequently point to the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s. (See accompanying story on E8.)
