Even if we accept my premise that women have always engaged in more infidelity than we've acknowledged, there is a clear increase in female infidelity, over the
past hundred years, and especially over the past fifty years. Why? Have women changed, or has society?
One of the most significant change we can attribute to the Industrial Revolution. The changing economic and industrial foundations of our society changed things in two very significant ways. It became difficult for families of middle and lower income to live solely upon the income of a single family member. The Industrial Revolution also created opportunities for women to work outside the home, in factories for instance.
Thus, two significant changes occurred, which still play out today. First, women were now outside the home, "unsupervised" by family members or their husband. To put it simply, this increased opportunity. It created the dynamic we still have today, of people spending all day, in challenging situations, with people other than their spouse or family. These situations create intense relationships, which sometimes develop into sexual ones. One cannot cheat, if one has no opportunity to interact with others with whom you might be tempted. Secondly, as women began to earn money on their own, contribute and be economically necessary to the family, women as a whole, and individually, began to garner greater power and independence.
In researching Insatiable Wives, I found that across the world, those cultures which have allowed greater female sexual independence have been cultures where women had higher levels of economic independence or control. In the Inuit, wives were allowed to be sexual with other men, often while their husbands were out hunting, and women controlled the household economy. In 18th Century Morocco, an Islamic culture where one would certainly not expect female sexual freedom, Lady Montagu wrote about seeing wealthy wives flaunt their male lovers. They could do so without fear because the family's wealth and inheritances were in their name, rather than their husbands'.
Today, research is clear that women who have higher education, and higher individual incomes, are at greatest risk of infidelity. To put it simply, these women have the least to lose. Their money is their own, their future is independent, based upon their own skills and experience, rather than that of their husband. The second great social change that resulted at least in part from the Industrial Revolution has been the changing role of women in society. Feminism has led to the greater empowerment, equality and independence of women in our culture. I'm not blaming feminism for greater numbers of unfaithful wives, but increased female infidelity is a corollary of increased female autonomy. In fact, some of the great feminist literature during the 1970's revolved around female sexual infidelity as a symbol of increasing female independence, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying is one of the best examples.
When I talk about these issues, I'm often challenged that I'm underestimating the role that contraception played in this change. Increased access to female controlled contraception, in The Pill contributed greatly to women's ability to step outside the marital bed, with less fear of the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy and being caught by their husband, with physical evidence of their infidelity, in the form of a child of another man. Certainly, I acknowledge this as an influence. But I don't believe it is as great an influence as economics and independence. Female infidelity occurs apart from contraception. And in fact, in future essays, I'll suggest why I think that an unconscious, biological desire for conception is more of a driving influence in female infidelity than it is in male infidelity.
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