Can we understand marriage by understanding adultery? For you can’t have adultery without marriage. And where there is marriage, adultery is often just a wink away.
And I know it is an affront to good sense to ask, what can we learn about marriage from adultery? It’s like asking, how can we learn to be good by asking a bad person about it?
Yet, I recall what Confucius once said: “If you see a worthy man, endeavour to emulate him. When you see an unworthy person, then endeavour to examine your inner self.”
That saying may be what is necessary to correct the affront to good sense about asking the question: “what can we learn about marriage from adultery?”
There are always two ways to look at such things. And I take my cue from the scandal that has rocked the media and entertainment world. By now, we should be familiar with the media leak of Andy Hui and Jacqueline Wong.
I guess the best advice for now comes from Kenneth Ma, Jacqueline’s boyfriend, possibly ex-boyfriend, when he said: “I feel that in this world, apart from Hui’s wife, actually no one has the right to say anything.”
That said and noted, I return to the two ways to look at the situation.
First, we can do what the Pharisees did when they caught the woman in the act of adultery. They all wanted to stone her. They made the private affair into a public affair. Incidentally, the mystery man had apparently escaped from the pharisacial dragnet.
Or second, we follow Confucius’ advice and examine our own heart, which is what Jesus meant when he said: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
The point here is not about not judging when the time calls for it. It is however about taking some occasions as opportunity to turn the mirror on ourselves. The truth is, we ourselves have to be careful because we can never be too careful when it comes to the secret affairs of the heart.
As Blaise Pascal puts it, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.“ And I take that to mean in this specific context that not everything we do is supported by a balance and consideration of its costs and consequences.
We should therefore never give ourselves too much credit, lest we puff the fluff and forget that we are only human struggling with our only-human desires.
The reality is, some things happen even to the best of us, and even happy marriages fall prey to an unguarded momentary temptation that seems like the stupidest thing to do upon sombre reflection the morning after.
Mind you, it may be a featherweight of a temptation which confronts us, but at times, it may very well meet up with a featherweight of our resistant will before we foolishly succumb to it, and regret big time later.
By then, the damage is done, the trust is broken and the marriage is endangered.
And Andy’s admission that he is lost, his heart and soul are broken, and he is undeserving of forgiveness is just the silent pull back of the waters on the beach before the emotional tsunamis hits real hard.
Alas, when it hits, the mess it leaves behind takes years to rebuild. And the foundation broken may risk never to be able to be restored.
So my takeaway is to rest the stone beside the mirror before me - to see my own reflection and that of the stone’s. More importantly, to examine the stone and see whether it has my name on it. Most times, it is inscribed in it.
And I am again reminded of Jesus’ words, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
Most times, it is not the sin that disqualifies me for we have all fallen. But it is how I too may fall prey to it that ought to restrain me, and keep me humbly and constantly examining my own heart.
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