There is no doubt that cheating, the concept of cheating, and the problems that go with it happen often, have real consequences, and are an enormous part of almost all cultures. Anywhere there is marriage, there will also be cheating.
Cheating is, to an extent, situational. A man sleeping with a woman is not necessarily cheating. What constitutes cheating is the man's possible relationship with another person. Cheating is defined by the terms of a relationship with someone not involved in the actual cheating. The terms of these relationships are often unspoken and assumed to be agreed, even when there might well be differences in what each person thinks those terms are. At some point in a continuum of relationship types a line is crossed at which point an identical behavior changes from legitimate to illegitimate.
What are the reasons for cheating? That should be pretty obvious, not getting what you want within a relationship (love, support, sex, variety). However, looking deeper it is easy to see biological reasons for both cheating, and having the concept of cheating. Biologically men want* to "sow their seed" in as many places as possible without preventing their ability to do so in the future. They also want the best chance for the maximum number of offspring to survive to reproduce. The best chance for the offspring (over evolutionary time scales) is to be raised by both parents, and ideally helped by an entire community. Biologically women have a much more limited ability to reproduce and so quality becomes more important than quantity. Women want the absolute best biological father in terms of genes, and the absolute best father in order to raise the child as possible, and there is no necessary connection between the two.
So, why is cheating a problem? For men, women cheating on them is a problem because they may well end up expending their resources on a different man's children. We can see the cultural embodiment of this in the establishment of the harem (a nice prison for wives), the burkha (to remove all sexual attraction), and the abhorrence public society has for the whore/promiscuous/slut. For women it becomes more complex. As long as a man comes back to the woman and helps raise the children, biologically things seem fine, the woman loses nothing (other than the possibility of disease, which was/is a significant problem). However, women without a doubt abhor their man cheating on them.
Why are women so against cheating? Is it fairness, what is not good for the goose is not good for the gander? Fairness is inherent in humanity, but only to an extent. Men have been the ones who go to war, lead groups, run into burning buildings, hunt etc.. Basically the dangerous things. Women have been protected, but expected to a large amount of work within the home and community (raising children, cooking, cleaning, harvesting etc..) A difference in role is not something that is within that sense of fairness. There are three reasons I can think of why women would be against men cheating. The first is that humans live in a community. A man cheating is probably cheating with someone within the community, and this is a threat to the other men and therefore to the community at large. The second would be a loss of status within the community, a woman unable to keep her man from straying, somehow inadequate. The third (and most important) is the fear that a man cheating may find something he prefers elsewhere.
In the modern world many of these problems are reduced. With birth control and modern medicine the birth of a child can be controlled and the chances of a child making adulthood and being able to reproduce are extremely high. If a woman cheats on a man while using birth control, biologically it doesn't matter. If a man uses birth control and the woman gets pregnant he knows it is not his child. The only time the man's DNA and effort are at risk is when the couple both agree to not use birth control, she cheats and becomes pregnant with the child of someone else. In the modern world a man cheating is not threatening a community. People will get upset but people won't get hungry, thrown out of society etc.. A woman may lose status in the eyes of people (generally other women) but this has little to do with a women's success. A woman who loses a husband will still get support to raise the child, still be able to get a job, still be able to find friends etc.. A man may "upgrade" but in terms of the effect of a woman's ability to pass on her genes (raise children to adulthood) this really doesn't matter much.
In the modern world people can cheat and not get diseases, not produce unwanted children, not threaten the survival of children, not risk their place within the overall community. Biologically, cheating in the modern world really doesn't matter. However, the genes that program the behavior are still there, and the cultures that enshrined jealousy are very much still around. Cheating is still viewed as a betrayal, hurtful, spiteful, and wicked. In my view, unless you still believe the Man in the Sky sent down the essential moral instructions (which is tricky if you are against slavery, treating women as property, genocide, child marriage etc.,) cheating and jealousy are simply outmoded concepts. They don't do any good.
Have I ever cheated? Yep, twice, nineteen years ago during a six month period. I cheated on my long term girlfriend of the time, who I had discovered was having an affair with a very nice man we both knew, and shortly afterwards I agreed to a request of the girlfriend of a friend of mine. The first seems to hardly be cheating at all, and the second came out of the whole concept that people just cheat and if you keep it quiet it doesn't hurt anyone. The first had no effect whatsoever other than being pleasant. The second yielded ostracism from everyone I knew once she decided to tell her boyfriend without telling me. Which was ironic since I knew that all of my friends had cheated on someone at some point (other than the man in question.) I learned from the second experience.
So, all this jealousy about cheating is a painful waste of energy, a remnant of a different, primitive time. It would be better if we just got over it and realized that a large proportion of people do it, and most of them don't get caught and carry on in their relationship as if nothing happened. Do I live this as well as talk about it? Well, my darling wife and I have an agreement that if one of us cheats they should use protection and not tell the other about it because then the wonderful relationship can continue unharmed. To my knowledge I have been "cheated" on twice, and neither time did I raise my voice, break up the relationship, or even get angry.
* A problem of language discussed in this blog post.
A note. Women report substantially fewer sexual partners than men and fewer affairs, about 75% in each case. In the first case someone is lying (and men report the same numbers in private and confidential surveys) and in the second case it only works if there are lots of single women having affairs with men in relationships. Basically women lie about this stuff more than men, and if I lived in this culture (and most others) I would too.
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