|
Crime of Passion
For all those who think that adultery is no big deal and that anyone offended or outraged by it is just a nosy, moralistic stick in the mud, a new law suit launched recently here in Toronto may just change their minds.
Eunwoo Lee, a 37 year old Korean woman now living in Toronto, has filed a $225,000 law suit against her former lover, John Riley, who secretly married another woman he'd been seeing for ten years while continuing what Lee describes as a passionate affair with her. Lee claims that discovering his marriage in April of this year devastated her, and that because of it she suffered anxiety and suicidal depression so severe it required psychiatric hospitalization.
But there's more to it than that. Lee claims that her body is her most precious possession, and that giving her body to someone in a sexual relationship is a serious decision, one that she never entered into lightly. Since Riley lied to her and intentionally deceived her into having sex with him under false pretenses, Lee claims that she was not able to give informed consent to their lovemaking and was essentially assaulted each time they made love. She would not have slept with him, she asserts, had she known of his involvement with another woman, and he knew it. At the very least, his intentional deception constitutes fraud in her mind, and she has the right to be compensated for her suffering. Riley is attempting to have her motion stricken, but in the event that a judge feels there is a case here, the two will face off against each other on October 2, 2001 to decide whether a man has a legal or moral obligation to admit he's married before starting a relationship.
Many observers consider this merely a "woman scorned" scenario, another example of a hysterical woman out for revenge against a married lover, but the root of this case goes far beyond revenge or bad blood between exes. This case is important for many reasons. If it proceeds, and if Lee is successful, it may be the first time outside of full blown rape cases in which a woman's body and sexuality are deemed sacrosanct and ultimately hers to do with what she will. It will be the first time that a woman who engaged in consensual sex is able to assert that her sexuality is as real and valuable as any piece of property or any other possession, and that violating it ought to carry the same punishment. It will be the first time in almost anyone's memory that a woman will be able to defend her reputation and seek retribution from the person who plied it from her with secrets and lies. These would be monumental precedents indeed. The mere idea that a woman's sexuality is valuable is almost unheard of in this society and many others, and certainly not something anyone has been too quick to defend before now. Which, upon reflection, is not difficult to understand.
Lee will undoubtedly face savage cross examination from Riley's lawyer if this ever goes to trial, and will likely have to defend herself from all manner of insinuation and innuendo about her character and morality. Like rape victims who face their attackers in court, she will likely be vilified by Riley's counsel for engaging in a sexual relationship outside marriage, and for any other relationships she may have had in the past; in fact, unless she was Mother Teresa before meeting John Riley, his lawyers will tear her apart. And the jury, unfortunately, may agree with him, since the attitude that women are largely responsible for adultery ('homewreckers') while men are hapless victims of lust has been the accepted standard for a few thousand years.
But Eunwoo Lee is a smart woman. She knows a simple case of a love affair gone wrong would be unlikely to win her the support of a moralistic jury. She knows that in order to call attention to the damage done by that failed relationship, she has to call attention to why she suffered so much. And by calling John Riley a fraud, she's done it.
No one has ever had the nerve to step out from behind the euphemisms and the shrugged shoulders and the 'but for the grace of God go I' platitudes and show adulterers for what they really are - frauds in every sense of the word. The very nature of their activities centre around betrayal and lies, misrepresentations and elaborate concealment, everything that contributes to fraud in the eyes of the law. They lead dishonest lives, they become practiced at spinning tall tales to cover up their secrets, and they begin to view the most important relationship of their lives - their marriages - as a kind of game, a cat-and-mouse adventure to see how long they can outwit the cat. Their entire lives become a series of increasingly elaborate lies, so that after a while they themselves don't even know what the truth is any more. Supporters of Bill Clinton, those who claim that character has nothing to do with running a country, either don't understand this, or choose not to acknowledge that it's true.
By accusing John Riley of knowingly committing fraud in relation to their sexual relationship, Eunwoo Lee is not only establishing that the taking of a person's sexuality is as offensive, if not more offensive, than taking their property, she is also establishing, indirectly, that marriage is a serious thing. She is asserting the idea that a legal commitment actually means something, and that even if adulterers, and would-be adulterers, don't take their marriages seriously, lovers, lawyers and judges certainly do. And she is making sure headlines all over the country trumpet out the idea that betraying your marriage vows hurts more people than just your spouse, something for which the adulterer is legally liable. Up until now, the worst thing adulterers had to face was the wrath of an angry spouse, who might have been placated with promises and oaths of obedience - now adulterers will have to face litigation every time they slip off their wedding bands and sidle up to a stranger at a bar. It may scare some people straight, and make them reconsider their cavalier attitudes towards betraying their spouses and lying to their lovers.
I'm sure John Riley feels like the victim in this situation. He is probably outraged that some woman has the nerve to make him pay for cheating on his wife and curtailing his little adolescent extra marital flings - people like him feel fully entitled to carry on with their clandestine affairs, and will defend their choices with a passion that would be admirable if only it were directed at something worth admiring. If Eunwoo Lee wins, I'm sure countless scores of men will roar up in outrage at the prospect of losing their playboy privileges at the hands of casual lovers who dare to expect more - but if she wins, I doubt her victory will do much to restore her emotional health. Revenge is sweet, as they say, but ultimately it doesn't satisfy.
This can be a very emotional subject for most people, but this kind of case is not about emotion. It is about justice, and about a person's right to recourse under the law when their rights have been violated. It's about making character a necessary ingredient in human relationships. It's about putting decency and respect for the individual back into our sexual relationships.
Now if only the courts would apply the same thinking to all those men trapped into child support for eighteen years...but that's another page.
|
