Fidelity Makes You Happy
Publication Date
9-9-1998
Publication
The Christian Century
Document Type
Article
Abstract
hat Bill Clinton and others like him don't understand is that sexual escapades always bring more trouble than they are worth. It is fidelity that makes you happy," my friend said. The conversation had been moving along at a rapid clip until that last sentence. Fidelity makes you happy. I hesitantly nodded in agreement. But I didn't know what to say.
I don't know if I was called up short by the audacity of that statement, a countercultural observation in the midst of our sex-obsessed culture, or by the fact that the friend who spoke is divorced, and so one who has had to struggle with failure in marriage.
Or perhaps it was because we are used to talking about these issues in terms of their negative restrictions: thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not lust after another; thou shalt not have eyes for anyone other than thine own spouse. Or, as one young man commented to me about his impending marriage, "My fiancée has reminded me that once I step to the altar, I will never again sleep with another woman. Whoa."
Recommended Citation
Jones, Gregory, "Fidelity Makes You Happy" (1998). Public Intellectual Writing. 181.
https://repository.belmont.edu/gregoryjones_public/181
