I'm not listing the title because I do review mainly children's books, but it's easy to find with the info I provided.
Author: Dalma Heyn
ISBN: 0679413391
Turtle Bay/Random House, 1992
Read August 2016
Inspired by professional and cultural literature presenting affairs as being unrelentingly horrible in outcome for married women, Heyn went out and actually talked to some (white, upperclass, privileged) women who DID have affairs, and when their thoughts and reasons clashed horribly with the literature, she took the brave step of abandoning the established "professional" truth, and simply listened and recorded what the women said, and then compared and contrasted that with psychological and sociological studies.
Basically, Heyn showed that if SOCIALLY KNOWN, (even just to the husband) having an affair was most often quite detrimental to women and their security (emotionally, physically, and fiscally) and to their standing in society, if the affair was private, the women in question often felt that this experience provided them a place to be a full, whole person, rather than the "socialized wife" that they all felt they were expected to be inside of marriage.
It was dated, but interesting, and I'd really like to see someone tackle polyamory and plural marriages, because I think some of the interesting dynamics of self-sacrifice and of being less-than a whole authentic self to make a married relationship work, and of course the idea that most men, and some women have that when married they have ownership or controlling rights over the other partner's sexuality.
Interesting read.
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