The Participants In Adultery

Marriage is not about documents, vows, or ceremonies.  These are all social constructs that have nothing to do with inherent logical truths being true and that the Bible absolutely does not prescribe.  There are truths about marriage and many other things that one might never think of or need to think of if it was not for the stupidity of someone else prompting one to focus on a specific ramification of something, and one of these for marriage involves adultery.  Some misconceptions about adultery are fairly mainstream, such as the idea that opposite gender friendships while married are "emotional affairs."  A less popular, fallacious concept which one might otherwise never think of, though, is the notion that in cases of adultery, only the cheating spouse has erred and the other party is by default not morally guilty.  

According to this idea, since only the already married person has broken vows, the other party could not have done anything wrong.  Yes, it is asinine for a betrayed spouse--and things like extramarital flirting are not adulterous and are even Biblically permissible (Deuteronomy 4:2)--to only think of the person besides his or her spouse as the offender when adultery requires two voluntary participants.  It is logically possible for adultery to be conducted by deceptive means.  A man or woman might pursue a romantic, non-polyamorous relationship with a separately married person who has not revealed that they are married or who has said they are not married.  The person the latter committed adultery with has not seen that their partner is already married to someone else and could of course not be in the wrong here in this way.  However, if adultery is immoral and if someone entices a married person to commit adultery or willingly chooses this action, "knowing" of the marriage as much as one can know given human limitations, he or she would absolutely be in the wrong as well.

The contrary concept is like the idea that men are morally free to be sexually promiscuous and women must remain virgins or all but virgins.  Aside from the logical contradiction of gender-specific moral obligation (if something is good or mandatory, it is good or mandatory in itself and not because of who does it), who the fuck would heterosexual men have sex with even if this was true other than women?  If the women were promiscuous, this would mean the promiscuous men are contributing to evil.  If the women were virgins, the promiscuous men would be taking from them what they believe the women are supposedly obligated to retain.  Thus, even if the morality of promiscuity was different for men and women--an impossibility--the men could not do what they are "free" to do without women simultaneously not doing what they should, which means that the obligation would ultimately be the same for everyone anyway since both sides would be immoral.  The same is true here with a married and unmarried offender: the obligation to not commit adultery would be there for both participants.

The adulterous spouse, except for cases of legitimate deception or omission of information, could not have betrayed their partner without the outside party intentionally or casually committing the adultery with them!  The one person breaking their vows is not even the real reason why adultery would be immoral.  It is not formal or informal vows before an audience of any sort, or even in private, that truly bind a couple in a potentially lifelong, committed relationship.  It is love, willingness to belong to the other person, and mutuality that would be the basis (along with rationalism) of any legitimate romantic or marital bond.  This fact about the true relevance of the vows still does not change that the obligation to not commit adultery cannot only be present for spouses and not for unmarried people outside the relationship.  It is not as if adultery can only occur when both participants are separately married!