Do we really want society to redefine marriage as an equivocal commitment?
The Ethicist column in the New York Times — a high-brow Dear Abby — has blessed adultery if one’s spouse is permanently incapacitated.
The questioner is a woman who married an older man. Her husband is now incapacitated by advancing Alzheimer’s. She is raising their child alone and has to earn a living. She still wants intimacy and asks whether it is okay for her to date. The Ethicist’s unethical response:
It’s obvious that you’ve had a lot to carry for a long time, not least caring for your husband as his Alzheimer’s has progressed. And you do owe him continued stewardship as his spouse. But given that his condition has evidently left him unable to sustain a reciprocal emotional and marital relationship, these obligations don’t mean you have to give up emotional and physical intimacy for the rest of his life. Fidelity, in a situation like yours, involves a duty of care, but with the effective loss of a companion, you’re entitled to care for yourself as well.
Really? “For better, for worse, in temporary sickness and in health, ’till Alzheimer’s do us part?” When the going gets tough, fidelity is an option?
In all fairness, promoting marriage as a matter of conditional love isn’t just expressed by liberal outlets like the New York Times. Years ago, the late religious conservative televangelist Pat Robertson said much the same thing on his talk show the 700 Club. When a viewer said a friend had started to date because his wife was incapacitated by Alzheimer’s, and he wondered what to say, Robertson responded, “He should divorce her and start all over again”:
I hate Alzheimer’s. . . . Because here is the . . . woman or man you have loved, the person you have loved for 20, 30 or 40 years is gone. They’re gone. They’re gone! They are gone! If he is going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again (and provide custodial care). . . .
If you respect that vow, ’till death do us part, this is a kind of death. . . . I certainly wouldn’t put a guilt trip on you . . . This is a kind of death. . . . If he says she is gone, he is right, because this is like a walking death.
No. Alzheimer’s and other permanently incapacitated patients need far more than adequate custodial care. They need ongoing devotion.
Living a moral and ethical life is sometimes the hardest thing, and losing loving consortium with a spouse because of serious illness or injury is among the most difficult of circumstances. And one can certainly understand and empathize with an ongoing yearning for intimacy. But do we really want society to redefine marriage as an equivocal commitment?
We all need help and community support for doing what is right in the most anguishing times, not permission to yield to temptation. It seems to me that approving adultery in such a public way makes it all the harder to remain true when marriage goes from “for better” to “for worse.”