JUDITH TREAS University of CaliforniaÐIrvine DEIRDRE GIESEN Utrecht University* l Sexual In®delity Among Married and Cohabiting Americans Virtually all American couples, married or cohab- partner (Smith, 1994). About half the states in the iting, expect sexual exclusivity of one another. U.S. retain laws against adultery that, although This article asks why some people are sexually they are rarely enforced, would deny married per- exclusive while others have sex with someone be- sons who have extramarital sex the right to vote, sides their mate. Previous research has linked serve alcohol, practice law, adopt children, or personal values, sexual opportunities, and quality raise their own children (Constitutional barriers, of the marital relationship to extramartial sex. 1992; Siegel, 1992). American couples, whether This paper integrates these ®ndings in a multi- married or cohabiting, agree that it is important to variate model that incorporates factors informing be monogamous (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; sexual decision making as well as demographic Greeley, 1991). ``risk factors.'' Nationally representative survey Couples' agreements about sexual exclusivity data show higher likelihood of sexual in®delity are a contractual condition of their unions. As among those with stronger sexual interests, more with all contracts, bargains are sometimes broken. permissive sexual values, lower subjective satis- Although sexual ®delity is the dominant practice, faction with their union, weaker network ties to recent surveys show that between 1.5 and 3.6% partner, and greater sexual opportunities. With of married persons had a secondary sex partner in these factors controlled, gender differences are the past year (Smith, 1991; Choi, Catania, & Dol- substantially reduced or eliminated, although ra- cini, 1994; Leigh, Temple, & Trocki, 1993). This cial effects persist. paper asks why some people are sexually exclu- sive while others have sex with someone besides their mate. Americans disapprove of sexual in®delity. More than 90% of the general public say it is ``always'' PREVIOUS RESEARCH or ``almost always'' wrong for a married person to have sex with someone besides the marriage Research on sexual in®delity has focused on three domainsÐthe personal values of the individual, Department of Sociology, Social Science Plaza A3151, the opportunities for extramarital sex, and the cou- University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-5100. ple's relationship. Permissive sexual values are associated with *Department of Sociology/ICS, Utrecht University, Hei- extramarital sex. Among Americans who believe delberglaan 1, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. extramarital relations are ``not at all wrong,'' 76% Key Words: Cohabitation, extramarital sex, marriage, sex- report having had extramarital sex compared to ual behavior. only 10% of those who think extramarital sex is 48 Journal of Marriage and the Family 62 (February 2000): 48±60 Sexual In®delity 49 ``always wrong'' (Smith, 1994). Being male, Af- Compared to married couples, cohabitors are not rican-American, and well educated are all asso- as sexually exclusive (Forste & Tanfer, 1996)Ð ciated with permissive sexual values (Smith, consistent with their less conventional values 1994). So is living in a big city. Extramarital per- (Clarkberg, Stolzenberg, & Waite, 1995), with the missiveness is linked to liberal political and relig- lower levels of commitment in cohabiting unions ious ideologies (Smith, 1994). It is also related to (Bumpass, Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991), and with dif- gender egalitarianism and premarital permissive- ferences in the sorts of partners chosen for cohab- ness (Reiss, Anderson, & Sponaugle, 1980). itation as opposed to marriage (Forste & Tanfer, Opportunities, namely potential partners and 1996). circumstances assuring secrecy, facilitate extra- Findings have accumulated in a piecemeal marital sex. Some Americans admit they would fashion. Since no study has integrated value pref- have extramarital sex if their mate would not ®nd erences, sexual opportunities, relationship con- out (Greeley, 1991). Couples who lead separate straints, and demographic risk factors into a single lives, for example, have more opportunities and multivariate model, we cannot discount the pos- are more likely to have secondary sex partners sibility of spurious associations between these fac- (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983). Married people tors and in®delity. who perceive alternative partners to be available are more likely to have had extramarital sex CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK (Johnson, 1970; Maykovich, 1976). Of course, those predisposed to extramarital sex might be Everyday accounts of extramarital sex often stress more likely to recognize opportunities that arise. irrational causes like alcohol-impaired judgment Dissatisfaction with the marital relationship it- or sexual addiction (Giddens, 1992). Although self is associated with extramarital sex (Brown, cultural scripts focus on romance and passion, 1991; Vaughn, 1986). Those who engage in adul- people contemplating in®delity describe consid- tery are less likely to report happy marriages ered decisions. The self-conscious evaluation of (Greeley, 1991; Bell, Turner, & Rosen, 1975). In- extramarital options has been called ``thinking'' ®delity has been linked to men's sexual dissatis- (Atwater, 1982) or ``the debate'' (Lawson, 1988). faction (Maykovich, 1976) and to women's per- A wife reports making ``a quick sort of negative ception of inequity in the marriage (Prins, Buunk, and positive checklist'' (Lawson, pp. 134±136). A & VanYperen, 1983). Causal direction is unclear, husband con®des, ``(I)t's a question you have to however, and other studies fail to ®nd a signi®cant ask yourself before.... `Why am I doing this? association for marital happiness (Maykovich, What will I get out of it? How does this affect the 1976), marital adjustment (Johnson, 1970), seeing status quo?''' (Lawson, p. 147). a mate as less affectionate (Edwards & Booth, Given social norms and strong dyadic expec- 1976), or, for Whites, quality of marital sex (Choi tations for sexual exclusivity, sexual in®delity de- et al., 1994). National surveys identify demo- mands calculated behavior. Theorizing about sex graphic risk factors for multiple sex partners. Ed- in terms of anticipated costs and gains yields use- ucation is positively related not only to permissive ful insights, as Reiss and Miller (1979) suggested sexual values, but also to sexual in®delity (Smith, when hypothesizing a ``reward-cost balance'' for 1991; Leigh et al., 1993). Being African-Ameri- premarital permissiveness. A decision-making can is associated with greater likelihood of mul- framework also serves to integrate piecemeal re- tiple sexual relationships than being White (Smith, sults of prior studies on extramarital sex. 1991; Dolcini et al., 1993). Men engage in more extramarital sex than women (Choi et al., 1994; Tastes and Values Smith, 1991), perhaps because of male-female dif- ferences in reproductive strategies (Lancaster, A review of clinical and research studies identi®es 1994), the gendered nature of learned sexual 31 reasons for extramarital relations; Most, falling scripts (Gagnon & Simon, 1973), or a double stan- under the categories of sex, emotional intimacy, dard that judges men's sexual permissiveness less love, and ego bolstering, pertain to personal grat- harshly than women's. The number of sex partners i®cation (Glass & Wright, 1992). Some people's declines with age (Dolcini et al., 1993; Smith, tastes and values increase the likelihood that they 1991), which might re¯ect biological effects of will engage in extramarital sex. People highly in- aging (Edwards & Booth, 1994) or recent cohorts' terested in sex might eschew sexual exclusivity more permissive sexual values (Smith, 1994). because they anticipate greater pleasure from ex- 50 Journal of Marriage and the Family tramarital relations. On the other hand, nonper- Social networks composed of people who are missive values are known to be negatively asso- apt to disapprove of adultery discourage extra- ciated with sexual in®delity, perhaps because marital relations, if only because one must go to people who hold these values anticipate discom- greater lengths to keep sexual in®delity secret. In- fort reconciling dissonant beliefs and behavior terestingly, married couples who became nonmon- (Lawson, 1988). ogamous ``swingers'' were insulated from social networks monitoring behavior and imposing costs Hypothesis 1a: Greater interest in sex is as- on nonconformists: Swingers knew fewer neigh- sociated with a greater likelihood of in®- bors, visited relatives less often, and joined fewer delity. religious groups (Gilmartin, 1974). Hypothesis 1b: Nonpermissive sexual val- H2d. When partners enjoy one another's ues are associated with a lower likelihood kinship and friendship networks, the likeli- of in®delity. hood of in®delity is lower. Opportunities H2e. Controlling for sexual values, attend- ing religious services more frequently is as- People with fewer opportunities for undetected sociated with lower likelihood of in®delity. sex must go to greater lengths to have extramarital sex. Individual endowments and learned skills af- fect how many sexual opportunities come one's Primary Relationship way. People with more sexual relationships in the Because partners expect ®delity, potential costs to past are more likely to have a secondary sex part- the primary relationship loom large in the face of ner (Bozon, 1996). The sexually experienced in®delity.