Topics Ethics

Question A friend's husband just up and left her after twenty-eight years of marriage. She had supported him emotionally and financially while he struggled as an artist, and a few years ago he hit it big. He then took up with a new woman, who didn't know him when he was struggling but knows him only as a wealthy, influential man. I believe the husband's behavior in leaving his wife is immoral: she was constantly there for him when he needed her; shouldn't he stick around for her now that she is older and needs him? Or is it morally acceptable for him to leave if he feels it would enhance his growth in life?

Accepted:
October 12, 2006

Comments

Difficult, isn' t it? He obviously owes her a debt of gratitude, and the law will ensure that he cannot jettison his responsibilities towards her entirely, I suppose. He may feel that his relationship with her has run its course, that is the sort of thing that people say, and that he would like to start a new relationship with someone else. Is this immoral? I suppose our relationships with others do change over time, and even if we are grateful to people we are not obliged morally to remain in a relationship with them as a consequence. In fact, that very gratitude may serve to hasten the end of the relationship. What difference does marriage make? In contemporary Western society, not much for most people morally. A husband in the situation you describe who stayed with his wife would often be regarded as having performed a superrorgatory noble act, i.e. more than one would be entitled to expect.

Should marriage make a difference? From a moral point of view, I don't think so. It is a contract and all contracts may be broken, albeit at a cost. I depends very much on what the parties to the contract had in mind when they entered into it, from a moral point of view. People do change over time and laws recognize this by regulating the costs involved. He might well feel that if his wife's financial needs are attended to, then he is entitled to strike off in a new direction. It would be difficult to label his action praiseworthy, but morally tolerable probably just about describes it.