Nine mistresses? Over the span of five married years? And he still managed to knock up his wife twice? Where did he find time to golf? Or make good on his advertising commitments? And what wife in her right mind would be okay with her husband spending so much “alone time” in Vegas – especially since nothing much seems to stay there?

After mistress number one was outed, Tiger’s trophy wife renegotiated their pre-nup and took a hefty cash advance ($75 million I’ve read) to ride it out by his side for a reasonable length of time. I think it was mistress number six that kicked her sense of pride into gear and she has since moved out. But six? One affair is okay. Two through five is simply smile that pursed lip Stepford grimace.  Six, however, is the magic back-breaking straw?

Count me as someone who doesn’t understand forgiveness of infidelity. Double my confusion when public humiliation is involved. But anymore society simply shrugs, makes jokes and accepts the really indefensible act of breaking faith as simply human nature. Human beings – men in particular it seems – aren’t hardwired for monogamy. The basis for this incredibly tired reasoning goes back to our primitive pea-brained ancestors. In the hunter/gatherer days of yore, mother nature needed men to spread a lot of seed – pun intended – and so couples mated for only the length of time it took to make, bake and wean a wee one or two before the male went on his Johnny Appleseed way and the female secured a different genetic donor (maybe so her offspring could mate with one another in a pinch – who knows). I am weary of the polygamy drives us theory. It implies that we haven’t evolved from our knuckle-dragging days of yore, although my husband firmly believes that many of us haven’t. It’s a shifting of accountability, and society too freely spreads culpability as it is. Most of all, it’s not adult. It is one more nail in the coffin of what used to be maturity. We are not a nation that strives to grow up in any meaningful way anymore. We want more ferociously than toddlers and woe to anyone or thing that gets in the way. Literal woe.

The truth is that we know better. If we didn’t, there would be no need to “come clean” or “apologize for transgressions” or buy silence. Does the alpha lion apologize to his pride? No, because he is acting on biological/survival impulses. He doesn’t even bother to take it to the tall grass when he is feeling frisky. Men, and women, hide and lie and confess when lying and hiding cease to work. Because they know better and they did it anyway.

Why?

Stupidity. Insecurity. Childhood issues. There is probably a website whose main purpose is to supply good reasons for bad behaviors. But mostly? Because they can. People cheat because it’s easier than dealing with whatever character flaw or issue is really at the root of the problem. Sarah Palin worked harder to write her memoir than many folks do on their primary relationships.

Marriage, apparently, should an extension of dating. A wonderland of flying monkeys with sunshine eternal shining out their bum holes.

The author of Julie & Julia has a new memoir out in which she details an affair she had. Emma Gilbey Keller’s latest column is about how a woman saved her marriage through cheating on her husband. It begs the question – WTF? But it is so typical of our culture anymore that it should be little wonder to any of us why we are targeted for extinction by jihadists.