Sociologists have argued that marriage is a man-made institution. It was put in place in order to control society by means of man-made legal stipulations.

During the years when polygamy was common, it was hard to ascertain the paternity of one’s progeny. Being married to one person at a time paved the way for economic and social goals, such as paternity, inheritance, morality, legitimacy and other value systems, designed to discriminate between the distinguished versus cavemen. The church’s stipulations that a one man-one woman union was how God intended humanity to live further strengthened the hold of traditional marriage.

History has been witness to many forms of social living over the centuries, the one man-one woman union being only one social system to date. From matriarchal to patriarchal, polygamous to monogamous, society is forever evolving.

At the heart of the matter lies more than economic and religious dictates. At the heart of the matter lies man’s search for a perfect system of living.

A perfect system would necessarily cater to humans as civilized social beings as well as beings with animal instincts. Love, lust, power and the need for emotional, sexual and physical connection all drive men and women to marry, divorce, remarry, have children, seek and abandon unions. At the midst of it all is a legal structure, the breaking of which leads to dire consequences. 

The laws of the land dictate how individuals steer their social lives. In Africa, there are still some tribes in which men and women live in groups without signing a certificate of marriage. In Arab countries, by law, a man may take four wives. In America, it is forbidden to have more than one legal spouse. While cases of men with two wives at a time are rare here, it is common to hear of married people “cheating,” infidelity being largely frowned upon by society. Yet the practice is more common than one likes to admit.

When celebrities and other public figures are caught having an extramarital affair, it makes headlines. Such news coverage makes everyone gasp, as if one were surprised that it happened. In reality, we know it happens all the time, everywhere, for a huge part of society — we just like to keep it hushed up. What we don’t know can’t hurt us, so if someone we know is “playing around,” we don’t usually approach him or her and ask, “Hey, how’s your affair going?”

The French are rather relaxed about polygamy, despite standards of monogamy. The French president has an open secret that he has both a wife and a mistress, and the press no longer writes about it, since his admitting it takes the sting out of the news. What is taboo is juicy to write about — lose the taboo and it’s just another afternoon of extramarital pastry for the president.

In America, we are a little different. On the outside, we like to raise our eyebrows if anything of a clandestine nature is exposed. On the inside, we know that it happens all the time.

However, when the president does it, it becomes a matter of legal and public debate and action. After all, we are not like the French! Presidents from Kennedy to Clinton partook in forbidden pleasures, from Marilyn Monroe to the now-forgotten Monica Lewinsky.

Many a senator and congressman have overtaken Clinton in the race of sexual ventures. From male-to-male contact in public restrooms to the very recent exposures of Republican former Assemblyman Michael Duvall, the news media is forever gushing with public figures breaking the rules. Duvall’s remarks were videotaped in July during a lull in a Sacramento hearing, in which he talked in graphic detail about women he said he slept with, including a lobbyist with business before the utilities committee on which Duvall sat as vice chairman.

An ethics probe of his actions is under way, and rightly so, says I! Duvall’s escapades, or “sexcapades,” make a mockery of the values he waxed lyrical about.

When lawmakers break the very law they are trying to strengthen, particularly Republicans who are always shoving down people’s throats tenets of religion as being supreme, they ought to be put behind bars. When they have homosexual affairs while in the same breath passing laws that forbid same-sex marriages, they ought to be ridiculed, have their marriages annulled and be made to wear a headband saying “Proud to be a bisexual.”

When a congressman who votes for harsher sentences on pedophiles is caught soliciting minors for sex, he ought to be institutionalized with regular sex offenders. He ought to be made to share the same prison cell with rapists and pedophiles, my version of an eye for an eye.

Are we not hypocritical, as a society, to pretend to be shocked when we know all too well that such behaviors are very common and that many married people, regardless of their public stature, seek sexual and emotional gratification outside the parameters of a man-made institution called marriage? If a survey were conducted, how many married folks would honestly be living the theoretical dream of “until death do us part?”

Those who do play by the rules would probably be very high on the index of frustration. True monogamy implies one man and one woman being happy in each other’s company for the rest of their lives. Is this a reasonable assumption,

or is it yet another fairy tale? Is monogamy alive in the true sense of the word? Or is monogamy dead?

• Samina Masood is a four-year resident of Tracy and is among a select group of local Town Crier columnists in the Tracy Press. She is a mother of two who has master’s degrees in both journalism and clinical psychology.