Why women cheat: It's simple. Because now, just like men, they can afford to

Comment: Why women cheat: It's simple. Because now, just like men, they can afford to

The Observer - London (Nov 17, 03:03 PM) BACK IN THE Sixties, a national paper carried a cartoon of a ship anchored in port with a long queue of men in front of it. The caption read: 'Queue here for the Duchess of Argyll.' The double entendre had the chattering classes sniggering: Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, had an infamous reputation as a serial adulteress whose voracious, predatory ways had been exposed by her long-suffering Duke in an acrimonious divorce.

A few years later, the colourful love life of Lady Antonia Fraser also caused a few titters when Nigel Dempster published her photo, with the epithet 'the much-loved Lady Antonia', surrounded by myriad men's mug-shots. Society smirked about these ladies, but did not shun them (though the Duchess did end up alone and penniless).

A WIFE'S infidelity, among the upper classes, was regarded as an acceptable glitch in the well-oiled machinery of your life; it was like a dumb waiter with rusty hinges or a Sevres dinner set with a few chips.

And there was a lot of it about: for, unlike their poorer sisters, these well-born women had the self-confidence granted by a healthy private income and a husband's fear of scandal. They knew the choice between the man they'd married and the man they fancied did not mean the choice between a life of ease and suffering in penury. So long as everyone behaved properly, tiptoeing along corridors, setting up discreet rendezvous, then no one need take issue with a lady's private pleasures.

Today, you don't need to be a duchess to survive without hubby's salary; and an affair is only a scandal when it involves a royal and a butler or two. Liberated from the constraints of money and reputation, British wives are indulging in affairs - North, South and centre - though South-East most of all. Top Sante magazine revealed this week that one in six women admitted to cheating on their partners - a figure 10 per cent higher than among men.

In the South-East, a fifth of the women polled said they had cheated on their man.

Nothing surprising in these statistics. Women are earning more money than they ever have. And far from fearing gossip, they know, from the telly and the cinema, that dysfunctional marriages where she cheats on him are the norm and not a shame. Cheat on him, and you're likened to Samantha in Sex and the City - the girl who's gotta have it. Those in the know might give you a rap on the knuckle, but no one's going to make you wear the scarlet letter 'A'.

Above all, married women are out at work (among male as well as female colleagues) more than they've ever been - 70 per cent, according to the Office of National Statistics. And work is where communication is still possible. Every affair is born of the search for the perfect conversation.

The straying wife is looking for Mr Listener, not Mr Right. She seeks a man who will hear her out, a man who uses his ears to hear her - rather than as yet another body part he can tug, pick at, scratch. She wants a wailing wall, an interactive audience and a father confessor all rolled into one.

Modern home life is conducive to none of the above: home is where the other half grunts and snorts in front of the box, an anti- social animal who only stirs to refill his glass. Home is where children demand your attention, bills clamour for payment, and his mother comes for a meal. Home is where you run a bath to hear yourself think - and no one seems to want to hear you speak.

The office instead is an all too tempting speech forum. Here, exchanges alternate with restful silence; group activity gives way to interaction. And hours of working cheek by jowl make for an intimacy that family members - plugged into their earphones, shut in their rooms, absent at mealtimes - no longer share.

OFFICE LIFE makes space for getting-to-know-you sessions - and women take the lead in this. Listen to a male and female colleague at work, discussing a proposed merger or a sloppy report.

He will talk dry and dusty professionalism. She will coax him into more intimate details, asking whether he watched The Office last night, or whether he's read Nick Hornby's latest.

Before long, she's loosened him up, and he's telling her how no, he couldn't watch The Office because he's had a row with the Missus ('she never understands how pressurised work is') and yes he did read Hornby, and sometimes wonders whether it wouldn't be easier to live with his son on his own.

For a woman, this oral engagement is necessary - it is what she founds her friendships on, and what she tries to duplicate at home. For a man, it is deeply seductive: she wants to know about ME. And because he's at work, where he is trained to listen to his boss, the accountant, the clients, he has no difficulty in bringing his listening skills to his time with her.

She thinks he's listening to her, he thinks she's gagging for him. What more promising start of an affair, as the Duchess would have said?

Cristina Odone is deputy editor of the New Statesman