'Italy's highest appeal court has ruled that married Italian women who commit adultery are entitled to lie about it to protect their honour. The court gave its landmark ruling after hearing the case of a 48-year-old woman, convicted of giving false testimony to police by denying she had lent her mobile phone to her lover. The appeal court did not agree that she had broken the law. It said bending the truth was justified to conceal extra-marital relationships. In a predominantly Catholic country you might expect the courts to take a dim view of lying and adultery. But not in this case. It said bending the truth was justified to conceal extra-marital relationships.
The woman, Carla, who brought the appeal had lent her telephone to her secret lover, Giovanni, who then used it to call her estranged husband, Vincenzo, and insult him. Giovanni, the lover, was convicted of abusive behaviour in a local court, and Carla convicted as an accessory. But the Court found that having a lover was a circumstance that damaged the honour of the person among family and friends. Lying about it, therefore, was permitted, even in a judicial investigation.'
What is it about these Catholic countries, who are technically the most repressive about sex - you can't even use condoms - yet in practice go to the other extreme in making allowances for it? Look at the way France has recently been celebrating their leader's affair with a supermodel, Carla Bruni.
And what is it about these Protestant countries where the US President gets impeached for covering up the fact that he had a blow-job off his secretary? And where, in the UK, you lose your job as a government minister if you get caught having an affair?We have a new Puritanism. 49 years ago Nixon and Kennedy were visiting the same whorehouse while they campaigned to be President, and the press kept quiet. Roosevelt had a mistress. (These events preceded the so-called 'sexual revolution' of the 60s.) I'm not saying I'm at entirely at ease with this, but also things have changed, probably since Pluto passed through Scorpio from the mid 80s to mid 90s.
8 comments:
Gotta love those Italians! :-)
It's simple for the Italians. Ones social position must be safeguarded at all cost, and a lie will be absolved by simply going to Confession.
II. Actually, Monica Lewinsky was not Clinton's secretary. She was an intern (young people who are infatuated with power and volunteer to serve a sort of apprenticeship to people in positions of power in the Capitol). As life would have it, they sometimes get into inappropriate relationships with the powerful people who are supposedly their mentors. Interestingly, Monica herself has said that she and Clinton did not have sex, but only "fooled around," making a similar distinction that Clinton and others make, that absent penetration sex has not occurred. Of course they, and we know better, but it seems to be a way for people to deny, to themselves mostly, that they have crossed the moral line.
Also, Franklin Roosevelt did not have a "mistress." He fell in love and had a brief affair with Lucy Mercer, who, although his secretary, was like Franklin a member of the upper class. When his wife, Eleanor, found out about their relationship, she forced Franklin to give Lucy up (never see her again). This he did until the day of his death when his daughter arranged for Lucy to visit Franklin. Based on the diaries and correspondence of Lucy Mercer, and many others, the book, "Franklin and Winston, an epic friendship," gives some insight into Franklin Roosevelt's closest relationships, or lack there of.
This post is unusually by its images and content sexually provocative.
by: Venus
I am amazed by the human capacity for rearranging their beliefs and mores to accomodate their desires . . . of course, when said humans are rich and famous then it becomes news. Yes?! ::shakes head, grinning::
Don't worry much about it, DR. When we all become robotized, they'll just program us for nice, tidy, impeccable moral behavior. Poof! No more inconsistencies of social attitude and acceptance. Although, now I have to wonder, where will the scandals come from if they take sexual deviation out of the equation? Hm...
But then we'll have a new chart for the moment we became robotised. Suppose your robot self has Venus conjunct Neptune in Sag, along with horny Mars in Cancer? You'd need a lot of hardwiring to rein that one in!
Perhaps this post is another manifestation of the transiting "horny Mars in Cancer" in opposition to the transiting sexually repressed Pluto in Capricorn?
by Venus
I wish!
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