A recent article published at wantchinatimes.com discusses the recent Ashley Madison website hacking and the social mores associated with sexual behavior in China. The Ashley Madison website advertises itself as a way to secretly arrange extramarital affairs, and the recent hack revealed tens of thousands of Chinese users.
But there are other indicators that show that Chinese people are breaking established social mores about sex. Ninety-five percent of corruption probes into public officials showed that they had affairs. The WeChat app, used for hookups, is more popular than Ashley Madison in China. The rate of affairs for men and women in China are higher than the average for other countries.
There are social mores against adultery, pornography, and frequenting sex workers in China, as there are in the United States. But the fact that these mores exist in China shows that people can and do create ethical standards for their society without a belief in God, since the majority of Chinese are atheists.
The conservative sexual mores in China are similar to those of conservative Christians in America, in spite of how Christianity is not the predominant religion in China. Some problems with the customs of both of those groups is an unwillingness to discuss sexuality openly and a pressure to have children. But hopefully the sexual revolution in China will lead to more healthy and beneficial customs without the loss of mores regarding marital fidelity. More openness in talking about sexuality and relationships can help those who chose to marry to have happier marriages and be less likely resort to cheating for sexual satisfaction. Lower stigmas against divorce will allow couples whose relationships are not working out to separate without feeling like they've failed.
In the discussions in my ethics class, several people have claimed that God is the source of morality, and without God there cannot be moral rules. But the situation in China challenges those assertions, because the Chinese people do have cultural and ethical standards that people are expected to live by. Standards for good human conduct can exist without a belief in a higher power.
The statistic that indicates that the rate of extra-marital affairs in China is higher than for other countries leads me to believe that non-belief in God does play a part in their attitude about extra-marital sex. Apparently they have social mores against openly having an affair but what they do privately is between them and their partner in infidelity - because they don't believe there is a higher power that cares.
ReplyDeleteAlso I thought China's policy of limiting families to only one child put pressure on them to NOT have children.
According to the article, 13.6% of married Chinese men cheat, which is 0.4% higher than the average for other countries, and 4.2% of Chinese women cheat, which is 0.8% higher than the average.
DeleteThis part of the article was what made me think that traditions other than atheism might encourage infidelity:
"Traditional customs, indeed, likely contribute more to cheating than they prevent it. Practices like arranged marriages and the filial obligation to have a child forces many young people into unhappy marriages, including homosexual people who feel pressure to marry in order to appease their parents, resulting in unfulfilling sex lives for themselves and for their partners."
I was a little confused when they mentioned the "filial obligation to have a child" because I know about their one child rule. But the fact that they do have many traditions and customs about marriage and families shows that morals can form within a group of people even if they don't believe in a higher power.
I think that there are plenty of justifications you can come up with for staying faithful to a spouse without invoking the Christian God or some other higher power. You could say, I want to maintain good relationships with my spouse and children, therefore I won't have an affair. Even if you don't believe that there's a God somewhere watching you, and even if you successfully hide it from your spouse, having to keep secrets like that can be bad for a relationship.
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