Couples like Rupert and Wendi Murdoch make sense when you understand the Chinese approach to love.
Part of the reason Wendi Deng Murdoch's "slap heard round the world" made such an impact was that it seemed to suggest "I love my husband," rather than "I love my husband's money"—the latter being the assumption most people would make about any marriage with a 38-year age gap, especially when the older person is wealthy and powerful. In China, the reaction to that slap was no less surprised, but unlike in the West, this was not the first time the Chinese masses found reason to praise Wendi Deng's marriage to Murdoch and his business empire. The first came when she married Murdoch in the first place. It's good to be reminded that all the things we take for granted about how relationships should be approached, about what we should expect from men and love and marriage, about age differences and levels of attraction—as in the case of Wendi and Rupert Murdoch—are mere accidents of life and experience and culture. This is what I learned as a Westerner living and dating in Beijing, at least.
"Open marriage" should remain a relic from the 1970s.
There are plenty of things from the 1970s that should remain in the 1970s: disco, the polyester leisure suit, and "open" marriage. Unlike disco, there are some people who think that open marriage, championed in the 1972 book (written by Nena and George O'Neill and titled, of course, "The Open Marriage") should come back.
Men in committed relationships subconsciously deny the attractiveness of young, fertile women.
Despite what many women may believe, men work really hard at "relationship maintenance." Even on a subconscious level. "It seems the men were truly trying to ward off any temptation they felt toward the ovulating woman," Dr. Jon Maner told the New York Times. "They were trying to convince themselves that she was undesirable. I suspect some men really came to believe what they said. Others might still have felt the undercurrent of their forbidden desire, but I bet just voicing their lack of attraction helped them suppress it."
If infidelity is calling to you, try these steps to avoid cheating.
Think your relationship is on the brink? Fantasizing about someone else? Thinking at all about...cheating? Ronnie Koenig of AOL Health invites Ian Kerner and Dr. Patti Britton to give anyone in a relationship going south some much needed advice before walking the potentially dangerous path of infidelity—this could potentially can save your marriage...
3 ways science can help couples be informed and faithful to one another.
New York Times blogger Tara Parker Pope's book, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, attempts to scientifically answer why many of us cheat and some of us don't. Here are 3 ways science can help couples be faithful to one another.
The Carabinieri, Italy's elite paramilitary police force, is now required to extend their faithfulness to marriage situations. A court ruled that they must be held to a higher standard and cannot engage in affairs either outside their marriage or with another married individual. That's removing a highly capable tool from the policeman's bag of tricks. Next they're going to say he can't hang from the bottom of a helicopter.
