Forced Cuckoldry

Ezekiel 16:29-39 

Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith. 

How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; 

In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire; 

But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband! 

They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. 

And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary. 

Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the LORD: 

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them; 

Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. 

And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. 

And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. 

Trigger Warning: This post is not for the faint of heart or naive. You were warned.

I’m sure that you have all heard various rumours or stories about men who have been forced to pay child support for a child that wasn’t theirs. Now, if you are like me (which you may well not be), you might discount these stories. “After all,” you might say, as I do, “They brought it upon themselves for sleeping around with women who were sleeping around.” You might even use harsher language.

But this post is not about that. The subjects of this post may well have done quite a bit of sleeping around before they got married, some of which with each other, but the subject of this post is the married couple. A married couple where the wife not only sleeps around, but gets pregnant doing it. And not some ‘open marriage’, but a tapestry of deception where the husband thinks for years that the child she gave birth to is his own.

In a word… cuckoldry. Cuckoldry of the worst sort. (Although there may be some competition there.) Your wife sneaking off, sleeping with someone, they produce a child, you think the child is yours, and your wife lets you continue to think so, and care for him, and pay for him…

Adultery

Proverbs 30:20 

Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness. 

From its announcement in the Ten Commandments, the sin of adultery¹ takes pride of place amongst the list of sins that God constantly condemns. And Solomon tells us that the adulterous woman, when she gets done ‘eating’… ‘wipes her mouth’. Which the commentators translate as, “When she is done her act of adultery, she bathes and puts on a demure look”.

And then she says, “I have done no wickedness”. Now I believe that needs to be taken in two ways: firstly that she covers up her adultery but, secondly, that she claims that what she did wasn’t wrong.

And in today’s age we have the utter perversion of entire nation states helping wipe her mouth. Creating and enforcing laws to cover up her adultery!

Truth vs Law

Jeremiah 9:3-5 

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD. 

Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders. 

And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity. 

But it gets worse. Because there is a difference between private sin and public sin, and between deception and… a refusal to allow the truth to even be spoken. Legal systems which, when faced with the problem of infidelity, choose to address it by shutting down the right of the father to determine paternity. Not just ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, but making asking and telling illegal.

Let me take a few seconds to repeat that. There are situations where a child… There are situations where a married woman goes out and sleeps with a man she is not married to, the sex produces a child, and a child is born. And the woman does not tell her husband about the sex or the parentage of the child.

And then years go by. Or maybe only days or months. And either the man suspects something, or some medical test is done. And… the law steps in. The law steps in to say, “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. The law, hospital policy… they all insist that the truth not be known, not be dealt with.²

And thus that the adulterous spouse not be dealt with.

Note: I have left out a ton of supporting details in the next few sections, preferring to focus on the logical issues and theological conclusions. The link below provides some of the references, and they are all easily found on the internet.

The Law

Some of the stupidity is due to the law. The law and the judges. A wife lies to her husband, he signs a document in good faith, and suddenly the law and the judges are saying he ‘admitted’ that the child was his… despite everyone knowing the truth to the contrary.

And so we have cases where a man has signed an acknowledgement of paternity, and so even a DNA test can’t get him out of supporting ‘his child’.

And what would seem obvious: that the husband could sue his wife for fraud for deceptively getting him to support a child who isn’t his… seems to be absent from the law.

Hospitals

Some hospitals and medical facilities find out by accident that a given child is not the offspring of their legal parents. And they tell the mother… but not the father. Even when it might affect the father medically (because he assumes he has some genetic taint), they are very reluctant to tell him.

(And one would note that that leaves the actual father out there not knowing as well… unless the mother tells him.)

Germany

As I understand the law, it is illegal for a purported father in Germany to privately test his purported son to see if they have any relationship. He needs to go through the courts, where the result is by no means guaranteed. Meaning the court might end up saying, in effect, “You are not allowed to know the truth.”

France

Similarly in France, where the laws were literally passed ‘to avoid family disruption’. Again, without the permission of the state, you are not allowed to know the truth. And the state will consider ‘family disruption’.

UK et al

Other nations, and US states, end up in the same place by default. They have systems in place that, not by law but by policy, forbid paternity tests without the permission of both parents, etc.

Israel

Deuteronomy 23:2 

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. 

The nation of Israel has taken a particularly grievous step in this battle. Because the children of adultery are not allowed in the congregation (the interpretation of the word translated ‘bastard’ here), their response is to make sure that no woman is ever accused of adultery

Now I want to take a second here and theologise, cause I have rarely ever heard of a more backward interpretation of a text. God says not to let the child of an adulterous woman into the congregation (assuming that they have the translation correct, which seems doubtful) and so they make sure no women ever get accused of adultery?

I have a hard time imagining a more direct way of disobeying God. This passage, assuming it is translated correctly, would seem to be God’s way of discouraging adultery… and we are to respond by denying that it exists?? The passage insists on the purity of the congregation, so we are to respond by covering up the impurities??

But regardless of that deep dive into Jewish practice, my point here is that this Jewish practice has taken the truth and turned it on its head. Nowadays the issue of paternity can be definitively settled… and yet country after country turns its face from the truth.

The Best Interest of the Child

Psalm 51:5-7 

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. 

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow

There is a saying, “Penny wise, pound foolish,” and, at least on their face, that is what is going on here. The state, or hospital, is trying to avoid short-term pain… and the result is a much larger dose of long-term pain. They try to discourage a child being outed as a bastard, and they end up creating more bastards.

They prioritise not outing the woman as an adulteress, and as a result create more adultery. And adultery is disastrous for marriage and the overall culture.

A Direct Attack

Jeremiah 3:8 

And I saw, when for all the causes whereby

backsliding Israel committed adultery

I had put her away, and

given her a bill of divorce; yet

her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and

played the harlot also

And let us be clear, this is a direct attack on the family. If the woman isn’t married, and any of ten men might have fathered the child, then ‘family disruption’ won’t come into play. If she knows that she wasn’t sleeping around, then ‘family disruption’ won’t come into play. We need to colour between the lines very carefully here: the only way that ‘family disruption’ can be an issue is where the married woman had sex with someone outside of her marriage, and this child is the result. Where the family has already been disrupted by her infidelity, and the courts are going to cover it up.

Or where the family is already disrupted, and the courts wish to force the cuckold to pay for the child that isn’t his.’

Sauce for the Goose

Leviticus 20:10 

And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even

he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife,

the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 

Now some might argue that this entire article treats men and women differently. Soit. Because biology does. The adulterer… the man who snuck out to have sex with his neighbour’s wife… does not bring home a child and pretend that it belongs to him and his wife. There is a famous Monte Python sketch in which a wife literally finds her husband in bed with another woman, and he manages to gaslight her out of her understanding of the situation… but no one supposes that a man could bring home a baby, lay it between his wife’s legs, and convince her that she just gave birth. Not even Monte Python.

And while the gender divide is impassible, these laws still massively protect the adulterer. He is not outed as an adulterer; he is not forced to pay child support; he gets to keep going with the same illicit relationship.

It was suggested that the answer would be mandatory DNA testing at birth. But I am convinced that the very forces that passed and enforce the current laws would resist such an effort tooth and nail. I would love to be proven wrong.

Forced Cuckoldry

Isaiah 5:20-21 

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 

Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 

So now I need to justify my title. I agree it isn’t obvious.

The issue of adultery is one of covenant and clarity. The spiritual nature is breach of covenant; the physical one is loss of clarity. When a woman only has sex with one man, then all of the resulting children are his. Which means we are justified in asking him to take care of them.

And, indeed, we rely on the natural human instinct to do so, and the underlying religious motivations. We allow her to trade her sexual exclusivity for his protection and care.

And the breach of that exclusivity we call ‘cuckoldry’. And, interestingly, it is seen as a failure of the man, the husband, when his wife is unfaithful. He becomes a ‘cuckold’. Everyone laughs at him.

And, throughout the centuries, he, and his society, have had a variety of recourse. He could kill her, he could kill the man, he could divorce her, the two of them (the woman and her lover) could be killed together, they might fight a duel…

Or, if he was particularly powerless, he might have to just watch it go on, powerless.

And up until the present, when his wife presented him with a child, he was forced to accept it as his. Because there was no way to know.

Then along comes paternity tests… Well, along come paternity tests, no-fault divorce, open marriage (which, to be fair, is in Chaucer), rampant fornication, the end of adultery laws… and paternity tests. And something that could be used, should be used, to cut back on adultery… was made illegal in the context of suspected or even known adultery!

So we end up with a wife who makes a vow, sneaks off and breaks the vow, comes home with the resulting child, lies about the child’s origin and, when potentially about to be caught… the state steps in to prevent the truth from coming out. And forces the husband to acknowledge and support a child from that adultery.

Cancer, Adultery, and Bastardy

I Corinthians 5:1-7 

It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you,

and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles,

that one should have his father’s wife. 

And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. 

For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, 

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 

Your glorying is not good.

Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? 

Purge out therefore the old leaven,

that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: 

The Scriptures make it clear that the elimination of sin is a high priority. Individual sin, corporate sin and even, as here, the fruits of sin… ie the bastard. But our modern society seems to think that we should elminate the knowledge of sin, not the sin itself.

Let me give an example. Suppose that your doctor tells you that it is a good thing to elilminate all of the cancer from your body. Would it then make sense to avoid testing for cancer? To forbid all cancer tests? To ignore all symptoms of cancer?

That would be obvious nonsense. A direct contradiction of the goal of the doctor’s orders. And yet that is what we have chosen to do.

Caveat- Sort of

Matthew 7:16-20 

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. 

Now I can already hear the screams and cries. The French insisting that their goal is not the protection of adultery, but the preservation of the family. The US judges pontificating on how the law comes down from Roman times and they are just dealing with a historical anomaly. The whole world screaming about ‘The Good of the Child’!

But that ignores the entirety of the picture. When, time and again, the culture and laws push in the same direction, and achieve the same result, then I’m afraid the Biblical maxim must apply: that is the goal. When the result is to shield the adultereress (and adulterer), and that result is achieved again and again via all of these different results… then I’m going to list that as the goal.

Surely it is not the goal stamped on the preamble to the law. Surely the Law will be called something like ‘The Preservation of Family Order Act’ (as if hiding adultery is ‘preserving family order’)… but when the law has the effect of hiding the truth of a dramatic evil… the law must be judged on that result, not its fancy name.

So however well-intentioned the laws in the past might have been, and however high sounding the name of the modern laws might be, they should really be entitled ‘The Preservation of Adultery Act’. Or, as I have entitled this article, “The Forced Cuckoldry Act”.

Is there room for mercy, and forgiveness? By all means. But only once we are willing to identify the sin.

Links

What Studies on Paternity Fraud Actually Reveal

1. For the less Biblically literate, ‘adultery’ here means a married woman sleeping with a man not her husband. A married husband sleeping with an unmarried woman would fall under ‘fornication’. So an ‘adulterer’ is a man who sleeps with a married woman, and an ‘adulteress’ is a married woman who sleeps with a man not her husband.

2. Not all laws, not all policies. This piece is a polemic against laws and policies which have this effect.