There is an age-old wedding vow: “Those whom God hath put together, let no man put asunder”, once the stellar path of faithful marriages. Sadly, the holy matrimonial covenant is being violated daily by unclean people intent on a risk-filled trajectory of hellish and lustful adventure.

Marital infidelity is a 21st-century social cancer that is contaminating society. This is just the tip of the iceberg, crystallised from thousands of illicit extramarital affairs. Who can blame the wife who went on a spree last week on social media revealing porn videos of her husband and his inamorata? Now she risks being charged under South African law.

With a salivating public endowed with a monstrous appetite, social media platforms gorge themselves on such schadenfreude like blood-drunk mosquitoes.

What drives such risky behaviour and the inexplicable alchemy of attraction is a psychologist’s dream. I remember something Nietzsche once said: There are two things wanted by a true man – danger and play.“

Therefore he seeks women as his most dangerous toy. But it takes “two to tango”, so in this forbidden pas de deux, the woman is a willing cohort. Life becomes a polished veneer, airbrushed. Quixotic day-time trysts behind drawn curtains and nights filled with wild, pagan passion become the norm.

For some men and women, sleeping around is as instinctive as breathing. They do not believe in outright purchases but rather short term rentals, where they have access to trade-in at their whim and fancy, and can dump their opposite like an election night promise.

Many women steal the thunder with ease, especially the ones gifted with natural physiological assets, a rakish swagger and beauty which they use to maximum effect. While many married men’s profiles are as clean as a nun’s underwear, and their social lives as dry as an aged Chardonnay, many are professional leerers, notoriously led by the groin.

They seek a lioness in the sack, not a life coach. The relationship eventually warps into notions of destiny, becoming a currency to dream; a shared realm, untouchable and solely theirs to hoard.

These affairs leave nothing but destruction in their wake. The shame and distrust will scar lives forever.

It is an emotional Hiroshima, so prevalent in the Indian community here in SA. Statistics also show that there is an increase in India’s digital flirtation, marital infidelity and women drinking.

While many sympathisers will pin their colours firmly on the thwarted wife’s mast, these shifting extremes mirror the rhythm of the modern world’s gravity. In the complicated tapestry of life, there are certain threads that when woven together could form the rope that would hang you! And be warned that in the biblical book of Romans, it is proclaimed that God will judge the secrets of man, and no man will escape judgement.

* Kevin Govender, Umhlatuzana.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

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