A study on extramarital affairs in Taiwan conducted by the TVBS survey center for the Taipei Kuanyin Association and released in July estimates that 460,000 families have been affected by infidelity, and one woman in four suspects her husband of having an affair.

The study identified men married from 8-16 years as the group at greatest risk, as they are involved in about 24% of all affairs. Not far behind on the risk scale are people 2-4 years into marriage. And 16% of all affairs happen during the first year of marriage. You almost have to conclude that first-year philanderers must have been thinking right from their honeymoon about getting out of marriage!

Women take the initiative

Illicit affairs are nothing new. In fact, they've been happening for as long as people have been getting married. It's just that Chinese men used to be able to take concubines without beating around the bush, and Western men once fought duels to the death for their paramours. Today, however, we believe in strict fidelity to one's spouse, and a wife would never put up with a concubine around the house. Yet wives today, who ought by all rights to enjoy legal protections, often lose out to interlopers, and are forced out of marriage.

The upsurge in extramarital affairs in recent years is related to the entry of large numbers of women into the workforce. Peng Huai-chen, an associate professor in the Department of Social Work at Tunghai University, counsels many married couples dealing with illicit affairs. According to Professor Peng, men used to have to go to red-light establishments for illicit sex, but women can be found everywhere now-at work, business meetings, stores, and even coffee shops. With contact so easy to come by, small wonder that someone with a roving eye would easily slip the rails.

There is nothing unusual about men having affairs, but the startling fact is that more and more women are now actively seeking illicit love.

Chien Chun-an, a professor in Tunghai University's Department of Social Work, did a study quite a few years ago and discovered that about 15% of affairs involve the woman going out and finding a man. As feminist consciousness continues to climb, this figure is certain to rise higher still. In two recent sensational cases, a veteran star of martial arts flicks recently brought in the police to help him catch his wife in the act of adultery, and an air force general's wife seduced a junior officer.

In addition to the trend toward more active female participation, observers have also noted that the familiar sugar daddy role now has a female counterpart-the "sugar mama"!

"Women today have money and means. They don't necessarily have to be anybody's mistress. In fact, they might just be 'keeping a mister,' so to speak." This is the observation of Polly Peng, chief editorial writer at China Times, who writes a marital column under the byline of Li Hai. According to Peng, women with big incomes and active social lives often have everything they need except a partner to chase the loneliness away. Women in this position are prime candidates for affairs with married men, whether seeking them actively or not.

"Everyone says that men are slaves to sex and women attach more importance to the emotional aspect," says Peng, "but a lot of women are every bit as lustful as men."

Why does it happen?

With today's loosening of traditional moral strictures, both men and women are prone to yearnings for forbidden fruit. All it takes is money, leisure, and opportunity. But why do some fall to temptation so easily while others manage to refrain?

Luo Chiung-yu, director of the Taipei chapter of the Warm Life Association, has seen all too many unhappy marriages: "An affair is not the cause of a broken marriage. It's the result." She notes that one common denominator of all affairs is that they happen in marriages that were already having problems long before. For spouses up to their neck in a sea of unhappiness, an affair is like a passing piece of driftwood-they grab on in a desperate effort to escape their marital torment.

Chen Mei-yueh (not her real name), who got divorced two-and-a-half years ago, agrees completely with Luo's take on the situation. A very reserved person, Chen already discovered even before getting married that she wasn't really compatible with her future husband, a fun-loving man with a taste for variety. But she had neither the confidence nor the courage to break off the relationship. They got married and spent six years living apart in Kaohsiung and neighboring Pingtung County, where they were respectively employed. They saw each other once a week, and all was well. But trouble set in after her husband moved back to Taipei.

"My husband was a big drinker. He never drank without getting drunk. And once drunk, he wouldn't come home." Chen would sit alone at night wondering: Where is he? Who's he with? What's he doing? All she could do was cry. "I didn't care whether he still loved me or not. I cried because I couldn't believe I had let myself get into such a predicament."

Looking for meaning and purpose in life, Chen decided to have two children. After the second child was born, she and her husband went into a protracted "cold war." Her husband continued drinking, and then became addicted to gambling. He eventually got into an affair with a woman working in a mah-jong parlor.

Who are the perps?

"I never blamed the other woman for a minute," says Chen, who explains that the woman had to support her family because her husband never held a job. Chen's husband, though a drinker and gambler, was nevertheless a good-natured fellow who didn't mind helping out with household chores.

"My husband would sleep at the mahjong parlor. When he woke up, he would run errands for her. She didn't chase him out, and in fact she helped pay his gambling debts." Chen understood their mutual need, and she was well aware that she herself had nudged her husband toward the other woman's arms by being so cold to him.

"My husband appears to personify today's concept of the ideal man. Most friends are totally unaware of his vices. If I asked for a divorce, they'd criticize me, not him!" Looking back, the way things turned out was almost funny. If the other woman's husband hadn't hounded Chen to intervene, Chen would have been perfectly happy to give her husband up without a fight.

And Chen Mei-yueh's is hardly an isolated case. Extramarital affairs are fueled by a push from within the family and a pull from without. Many people torture their mates by harping and nagging, giving a cold shoulder, belittling, and "going on strike" in bed. A marriage can hit the rocks without an affair ever happening.

Small wonder, then, that some women's rights activists see both the wife and the mistress as playing a role in destroying a marriage. They even see interlopers helping to save marriages in some instances by providing temporary respite for the spouse involved in an affair.

So is it wrong to get involved with another's spouse?

"Yes, absolutely!" This is the emphatic opinion of Polly Peng, who ended up divorced after her husband had an affair. She feels that many marriages could be saved it weren't for outsiders.

Peng stresses that even where there is strife in a marriage, both parties would be more willing to work things out if they didn't have outside distractions. But the arrival of a third party on the scene changes the equation. It is all well and good when someone can say, "I never asked for a divorce," but as time wears on, the existence of an affair introduces tensions and conflicts that can destroy a relationship.

High-risk behavior

The strength of a given person's immunity to adultery serves as a barometer of that individual's degree of satisfaction in marriage. But immunity is best not put to the test. It is important to steer clear of dangerous situations, for how many of us would dare compare ourselves with the chaste Liu Xiahui of antiquity? And we can't expect our partners to be saints either.

Thousands of Taiwanese businessman have established companies or taken employment in mainland China in recent years, and for many of them, setting up shop in the PRC has proven a golden opportunity to take on a mistress. For their wives back in Taiwan, this has been a frightening development. Too many husbands have proven that unless there's some straight talk done beforehand, Taiwanese wives had better not expect impeccable behavior from their husbands in the PRC.

A Mr. Lin, now settled in Shanghai, got divorced seven years ago after having an affair. He looks back with regret at the misadventure: "I had just come to the mainland, and was totally unfamiliar with the place and the people. I had over a hundred people under me at the company, and couldn't afford to make a single mistake on the job. The pressure was intense. Then I'd come back to my empty company apartment. The loneliness was driving me out of my mind."

His wife didn't help, either. Not long before his company sent him to Shanghai, a casual remark turned him cold: "Your being gone is no problem. Just be sure the money makes it back." During the winter and summer vacations, his kids preferred to go to Japan or the United States rather than visit with their father in "backward" mainland China. He came to feel more and more like a money machine, and that no one truly cared about his feelings and needs. When his secretary began showing some personal warmth, it didn't take long at all to melt him.

Since his divorce Mr. Lin has been married twice more in the PRC. Says Lin: "I'm not trying to justify myself. I just wish women in Taiwan would be more understanding of how tough it is for a man to be out struggling on his own. They shouldn't let their husbands make the same mistakes I have."

Conquest and tribute

Ting Yao-tsung, who did business in Guangzhou for eight years, puts on an innocent expression and pleads temporary amnesia every time his wife asks whether he was unfaithful. But he is fully aware of the perils of adultery, for he saw too many men go from dalliance to full-blown romance and end up making a mess of their home life, career, and health.

Ting explains how a man's mind ticks: "We see a precipice and just have to go right up to the edge to appreciate the beautiful scenery. But that's not enough. We have to pick that pretty little flower growing out beyond the edge. We rate ourselves highly. We think we can keep our balance at the edge even if others can't. We think we would never do anything foolish for one little flower, but we're already lying in pieces at the bottom of the precipice before we realize the heavy price to be paid when we reach for that flower."

Professor James C.T. Hsueh, of the Department of Sociology at National Taiwan University, analyzes the situation from the perspective of power relationships. Taiwanese businessmen in the PRC have money and rank, which naturally makes them very attractive to mainland Chinese women. Extramarital affairs between them and mainland women are exactly the same in nature as those between parliamentarians and their legislative assistants, or between notable society figures and their admirers. It's a simple case of conquest and tribute.

Hsueh warns that if the current trend toward economic decline in Taiwan and economic boom in the PRC continues indefinitely, it's not inconceivable that men from mainland China could be taking mistresses in Taiwan ten or 20 years from now.

Affairs are for wimps

Mainland China is an infidelity trap, to be sure, but the fact is that temptation is all around us wherever we go.

Jane Wu, a social work professor at Tunghai University and director of the university's Family Wellness Center, points to the mass media and advertising as a big part of the problem. Advertisers and the media hammer away at our emotional, sexual, and material desires, putting the female body constantly on display and reporting indefatigably on sex-related news. We are encouraged to believe the mistaken idea that "this is what life could be like."

Medical clinic nurse Ms. Li, whose husband is generally pretty indifferent about sex, was surprised to see him buy an NT$8,000 VCD player after the sensational Chu Mei-feng sex scandal. At the heart of the scandal was a secretly filmed VCD showed Chu having torrid sex with a married man, and Li's husband watched it over and over again. Li suddenly became acutely aware of how long she had gone without dieting or paying special attention to her appearance, and she also gained a new appreciation for the media's ability to excite sexual desire.

Because the sex act is so important to some men, the Warm Life Association advises in its marriage guidance courses that women should consider setting aside their inhibitions and consenting to oral sex and the use of sex paraphernalia. By occasionally injecting a bit of variety and fun into marriage, women can perhaps make their husbands more resistant to outside temptation.

Every affair occurs for a different set of reasons, but a close look will invariably reveal certain "infidelity-inducing" character flaws-a tendency to be contrary, and to flee from tough situations. This insight flies in the face of the long-held myth that "affairs are the sign of a successful man."

Liao Ching-pi, an associate professor of social work at Soochow University and director of the Yoyuen Social Work Foundation, holds strongly to the newer view. Studies done overseas, says Liao, "show that affairs are most likely to happen with men who are unsuccessful in their careers, suffering from sexual dysfunction, or faced with problems in their family or personal relationships that they can't handle." In other words, affairs are for wimps!

Running from problems

Liao believes the high incidence of extramarital affairs is inevitably linked to culture.

"Chinese society has always attached greater importance to men than to women. Overprotective mothers raise their boys to be irresponsible, and lacking in courage and willpower," says Liao, who adds that personal relationships cannot be without friction, especially marital relations, which are so close that one has nowhere to hide. Marriage requires formidable people skills and considerable maturity.

Says Liao, "People who get into affairs lack this maturity. They don't have the courage to face issues square on and resolve them. If men are truly unapologetic about their affairs, that's one thing, but if they jump into them while feeling they shouldn't, they end up with all sorts of psychological hang-ups, including confusion, regret, and low self-esteem. This is when you'd better be careful."

Polly Peng agrees strongly with this view. Her husband was the type to give up and run away when the going got rough. He left his family and married the woman he had been having an affair with, only to have another affair and divorce, at which point Peng said to him in disgust: "I thought you had left us for 'true love.' If only I had known how little your love was worth! Just look at what you've done to everybody! What's the point?"

A Mr. Chiang's case was even more peculiar. Working in Taichung and supporting his family in Changhua, he lived for a number of years in a "weekend marriage." He eventually struck up a relationship in Taichung with a bar girl named Mei-jung and took her in as his mistress. His wife, in poor health and tied up with two small children, seldom made it to Taichung to see her husband, so the affair went undiscovered for a long time, until at last Mei-jung gave birth to a child and got fed up with her status as mistress. She called Chiang's wife in the middle of the night to force a showdown.

After the affair hit the fan, Chiang had to make a choice. His wife was a university classmate that he was happy to be seen with, while Mei-jung was from a much lower social stratum. Chiang, moreover, had long since grown weary of Mei-jung's tantrums, and had no interest in providing for her child.

Chiang cooked up a bizarre scheme to retaliate against Mei-jung for calling his wife and disrupting his marriage. He and his wife agreed to get divorced so that Chiang could say to Mei-jung that he had no intention of marrying her despite his single status. This would force her to forget all hope of marrying him.

He then acknowledged paternity of the illegitimate son and gave him up to foster parents so that he could cut all ties to Mei-jung and her baby, remarry his wife, and go on as if nothing had ever happened!

To leave or not to leave

Early in his career, Professor Chien Chun-an did a study in which he found that 60% of men in affairs start out hoping they can keep up the relationship with both women. In cases where the affair leads to divorce, the denouement starts with tears from the mistress putting the man in an agitated state that does not escape his wife's attention. His wife's righteous anger then drives him away. As they go through divorce, the emotional state of many men can be summed up quite simply-what a pain in the butt! They ask themselves: What in the world made me fall in love with this pair of women?!

In a minority of cases, an affair ends not in rage, but instead the couple choose to interpret it as a call for help. Such couples sit down together, work out their problems, and find a second romance within marriage. Unfortunately, few are capable of this feat, as it requires that both parties (and perhaps a third party as well) have a very positive, rational, and mature character.

Moreover, even though studies indicate that about 80% of couples that go through an affair end up staying together for their children's sake, marriage experts know that the real test begins after the affair is over. After an all-out effort to get back one's cheating spouse and win back a bit of dignity, once the rival has left the scene the aggrieved party will often release a tremendous store of pent up fury on the offending spouse, leading in the end to divorce.

And the interloper? Studies show that only one in five ends up marrying their lover. The barrier between lover and spousal status is tough to clear.

When an interloper ends up marrying the object of his or her affection, the real test begins after marriage. There is hardly another area of life where the predicaments are as impossible as in adultery.

Stay clear, live free

Peng Huai-chen states, "An interloper almost always comes to tragedy." A recent statistic from mainland China indicates that marriages resulting from an affair are 81 times more likely than regular marriages to end in divorce!

"This is not moral retribution," says Liao Ching-pi. "The interloper, right from start, is just a victim of someone else's unhealthy marriage, and in fact a victim of someone's character flaws."

After marrying, the interloper formally becomes a part of the life of his or her spouse, and inevitably has to face criticism and comment from new in-laws and acquaintances, not to mention the ubiquitous influence of the original spouse. And on top of that, the new couple has to contend with feelings of guilt and shame. If there were children in the previous marriage, the situation is doubly complex.

Liao Ching-pi notes a supreme irony: Many a man who has an affair fights bitterly with his wife prior to divorce, refusing to come home or provide financial support. Sometimes he will even beat her, all in an effort to rid himself of the thorn in his side. But once the divorce goes through he plunges into a deep melancholy and seeks to make up for the pain he has caused his wife and kids.

Liao shakes her head and laments at the selfish, ignorant ways of humanity: "Sometimes it's because the man discovers that his new partner doesn't match up to the old. In other cases he just wants to hold on to his kids, and doesn't want to hear them calling another man 'papa.'"

Perhaps Polly Peng summed it up best: "After the passion of new romance has died down, people discover that it doesn't make a big difference who you marry. That being the case, rather than destroying an existing home and starting all over again, why not spend your energy keeping the fire burning at home?"

Refraining from adultery isn't for the sake of morality, nor is it for the good of your spouse. It's so you yourself can make a success of your life!

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"There were three of us in the marriage. It was a bit crowded." This noted quote from Princess Diana struck a sensitive nerve with victims of adultery all over the world.

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(illustration by Lee Su-ling)

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Adultery has always been a problem in human society. It's just more serious now than before. (illustrations above and on opposite page rephotographed from Jin Ping Mei, courtesy of Li Kung-heng)

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(illustration by Lee Su-ling)