In the history of culture, very rarely is there an analysis of prostitution as a social institution. Nevertheless, its stability over many centuries suggests the existence of significant biosocial roots in the basis of this phenomenon. Even more rarely is the analysis of the connection in the origin of prostitution and adultery, despite the well-known similarity in the generation of both phenomena. All known facts allow us to say that both these phenomena are associated with both monogamous marriage, and with gender discrimination, segregation and gender biosocial asymmetry of physical and mental development. Repeated attempts by the authorities of the European world to eradicate these phenomena were doomed to failure. Both of these phenomena are of no small importance in modern society, but their causes have somewhat changed.

Keywords: Sexual needs, history of marriage, monogamy, adultery, sexual relationships, prostitution, sexual service, divorce

Socialist Edward Fuchs in the early twentieth century, in his book on the Renaissance manners, considered monogamy in the conditions of full patriarchy the main reason for the emergence of two social institutions - adultery and prostitution.¹ As a supporter of Morgan, he believed that monogamy characterizes a certain stage of historical development of society, and the stage is not too successful for the development of marriage and family. True, unlikely adultery can be fully considered a social institution, for despite its global prevalence in European society from Antiquity to the present day, for him, there almost never existed formally regulated norms for the provision of sexual services and institutions, with the exception of a brief period in the era of the late Roman Empire, but there were legal provisions prohibiting the nature.^2,3 However, in relation to prostitution, starting from a certain point, it is possible to speak about this in full. According to the American anthropologist and social theorist Lewis Morgan, a researcher of the evolution of the family, monogamy was the result of the concentration of significant wealth in the hands of one man who sought to transfer these riches only to his children. Naturally, this concentration arose already at a rather advanced stage of the development of society in the transition to a settled way of life and the emergence of states. According to Morgan, monogamy was preceded by promiscuity, followed by the emergence of a group marriage–polygamy⁴ in particular; he notes the existence of polygyny (the presence of two or more wives in one man) in some tribes of the Indians of North America.⁵ Traveler Henry Landor noted the simultaneous cultivation of polygyny and polyandry in Tibet.⁶ The writer of marriage and sexual relations George Scott, in contrast to Fuchs, considered polygamy an unconditional evil and condemned the traditions of Mormons. In his opinion, everywhere where marriage was polygamous, women suffered and were extremely unhappy with their position.⁷ this, however, is far from the case, even for our time, not to mention the distant past. Separate cases of suicides of brides and young wives, led by Scott, are not proof of general discontent, for such cases were rare and always accompanied by other aggravating circumstances. No less case of such suicides we find in European culture, where almost to the twentieth century girls, most often, were not given out for a person they liked. However, it should be noted that the grounds for the appearance of adultery and prostitution have been for many centuries not only in monogamy, but also in the absence of choice, especially for girls, a life partner in accordance with their feelings, as well as in the entire social organization of a patriarchal society with gender segregation and gender asymmetry of rights and requirements.

Prostitution

In many other cities of the Mesopotamia, particularly in Babylon, according to Herodotus, at the temples of the goddess of love, the girls and women were to be given to the stranger for money. The more attractive ones did their duty quickly enough, because they were chosen quickly, while the less attractive they had to stay there for a number of years, waiting for the opportunity to be chosen for sex. Most likely, the money that the girls received for defloration went not only to the temple, but also to the dowry for the wedding. The girls who remained to serve in the temple, then found the husband all the easier, than the great success they enjoyed as the priestesses of love. Most likely, the very presence in the temple as a sacred center gave the girls a special aura of sinlessness with everything else. And, of course, in the temple, where thousands of pilgrims flocked, they had much more opportunities to find a suitor than in their village.

In most ancient cultures, the male penis served as a symbol of fertilization and was deified. In India it was the cult of Lingam, in Egypt - the cult of Priapus as the genus organ of the god Osiris, in Greece - the cult of Fallus or Fallus, coming from Asia, and the cult of Dionysus also of a phallic nature. The cult of Priapus first existed only in Etruria, which can be judged by erotic images on ancient Etruscan vessels, but gradually enveloped many of the Mediterranean lands. It should be noted that the phallic cults were united in their rituals and forms of service with the cult of the goddess of love of Venus-Aphrodite and their eastern counterparts. Temples in Ancient India, dedicated to the god of love Kame, were decorated with fairly explicit sexual scenes that amaze the imagination and modern viewers. In the Indian legends, Lingam was considered the oldest of the Hindu gods and his cult was widespread in the Brahmin caste. Women-Devadassi or bayaders were literally priestesses of sexual relations or priestesses of sensual love. Their dances simulated passionate love and stimulated the sexual attraction of the audience. Most likely, it was from India through the Phoenicians that the tradition of sacred sexual relations and temple prostitution became a role model in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Canaan and Greece. In Canaan and Egypt, prostitution was practiced by men.

So, in Egypt, women wore amulets depicting Priapus, and some of them-almei-as well as in India, were "priestesses of love" and beautiful dancers, singers and musicians. According to the French traveler Savary, at the end of the XVIII century they participated in all celebrations, both family and broad public. Almeas, as well as the Indian bayaders, enthusiastically danced themselves and the audience, which often ended in sexual orgies. At the same time, they were considered worthy brides and often married. According to Dupuis, the Almaeans also participated in marriage ceremonies at the beginning of the 20th century.⁸ And here it is hardly possible to talk about prostitution as a social institution, because these Egyptian courtesans did not live in special houses and their lives were not regulated and were not limited to sexual services.

In Ancient Greece, we find at least three categories of women who could receive money for sexual services: dictaires, delirium, and hetaera. Only the first group can, with a well-known reason, be considered prostitutes, i.e. specializing in providing sexual services for money. This label is hardly applicable to other categories. As we saw above, the Hethers of Antiquity were highly educated and musically gifted, were able to love and were loved more often than legitimate wives who, in turn, could find other people. The Awletris were primarily musicians, singers and dancers, and most often received money and gifts for it. A researcher at the beginning of the twentieth century, Dupuis considered the emergence of prostitution as early as the emergence of human society, drawing, in particular, on the data on the description of syphilis in Chinese manuscripts 2600 years BC.⁸ However, it is hardly legitimate to consider that venereal diseases appeared only with the advent of prostitution. Most likely, the spread of these diseases was associated with uncontrolled and short-term sexual relations, close to promiscuity, especially characteristic of periods of waging wars.

Prostitution - as a specially organized sale of sexual services - can to some extent be regarded as a form of social control. In legal brothels, hygienic and at least minimal medical control has been mandatory for many centuries. From time to time, especially in the middle Ages, secular or church administrators closed them, but with the same regularity they restored their work. Sometimes due to such prohibitions and the resulting consequences (first of all, the increase in the number of crimes on sexual grounds), the heads of the church or the princes had to change these administrators. Most often, the closure of brothels and the expulsion of prostitutes was associated with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases or with more serious epidemics, which was also blamed on prostitutes. At the same time, it is important to consider prostitution as a social institution, which consists of women who earn their living exclusively by providing daily sexual services, as well as the corresponding houses where they live and where these services are performed, as well as the normalized and regulated nature of their work. These institutions were managed or controlled by state or municipal authorities. Their incomes were taxed, and more often than not, prostitutes had their own insignia, such as a costume made of variegated fabrics with a pinned bouquet of flowers, yellow hair or blond wigs.

Hethers and wolves in classical Greece cannot be considered prostitutes in the full sense, because they did not always take money or gifts for sex, and often received money only for dancing, playing and singing at symposium feasts, and some simply for the presence, because of Greek cult of the beautiful body. They did not live in special houses and they did not have routine sexual duties. Strabo and Herodotus, who write about prostitution in the kingdoms of the Ancient East, described, basically, the temple "priestesses of love," where sex was only part of the religious ritual. This, as well as in Greece, did not exclude the provision of sex for money, but with rare exceptions, did not have a regular and self-sufficient nature.

The most famous step in the establishment of the institution of legal prostitution can be considered the Solon reform in the VI century BC, which established dikterioni with Asian slaves in the vicinity of the Athens port of Piraeus near the temple of Venus Pandemos. The Greek dikterions continued to exist after the death of Solon and continued to enjoy the support of the authorities up to the Macedonian conquest. It was believed that they are a safety valve of public morals and hygiene and an institution of public morals so important that the legislators recognized the right of asylum for them. In one of his speeches Demosthenes noted that "the law does not permit to blame in adultery those who are caught with a woman in a house of tolerance or in a public square where prostitutes are engaged in their own craft." This also says that in Athens, IV century BC. public houses enjoyed the support of the authorities, and a man could be punished for adultery, but not in a place intended for public love.

However, only in Rome, the sale of sexual services has become an independent and most sustainable social institution with its own code, a whole system of legal brothels and the registration of prostitutes. Moreover, in Rome, not only employees of brothels were subject to registration, but all who provided paid sexual services in any other place, including male prostitutes and children. In order to better collect taxes in the Roman Empire, even special public houses appeared, where married women provided sexual services. In these houses, there was a complete blurring of the lines between adultery and prostitution. At the end of the IV century Emperor Theodosius abolished these brothels. It is interesting that in the same IV century large brothels in Rome were not only managed by the state, but also were the object of the tourist business.⁹ The transition from secular to ecclesiastical power did not change this situation at all, but the brothel keepers had to pay taxes to the city authorities, princes, and ecclesiastical authorities. The latter was not at all embarrassed by this kind of sanctioning the sin of adultery, most often it was only limited to the requirement to place these houses away from the church.¹⁰ In turn, city authorities demanded the presence of prostitutes with distinctions, so that they are not confused with "decent women." But the main thing that interested the authorities was the income from this profitable business.

Thomas Aquinas remarked in the 13th century: "Save the society from public women and you will see that debauchery will break in everywhere. Prostitutes in the country are the same as the cloaca in the palace; destroy the cloaca and the palace will get dirty and become stale. “Thus, one of the most authoritative theologians of the middle Ages recognized the institution of prostitution as a lesser evil, where debauchery can be localized and limited. Moreover, the secular authorities also came to this conclusion. So in 1358 the Grand Council of Venice recognized prostitution as absolutely necessary for the whole world.¹¹ In general, by the fourteenth century the church recognized the usefulness of brothels as the least evil in the field of sexual relations.^12,13

However, judging by the demands of the city authorities in the middle Ages, married women sometimes, as well as in Rome, were a serious competitor to legal prostitutes, which indicated the illusory nature of this restriction of sexual life. Nevertheless, this does not mean the inexpediency of the institution itself, especially since the authorities of Rome sought and found ways to encompass all "toilers of horizontal fishing". From time to time the church hierarchy issued strict edicts on the criminal prosecution of prostitutes, up to the death penalty. Especially at the beginning of the 16th century, when the widespread use of syphilis sharply worsened the attitude towards prostitution.¹⁴ so in Pope Sixtus V issued an edict on the death penalty for prostitutes, however, due to the short duration of his power, this decree remained without serious consequences. Most of the subsequent hierarchs of the church rather shared the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, but nevertheless tried to limit prostitution with varying success. With the advent of the Jesuit order, more productive tools began to be used, instead of punishments and persecutions. Considering that the main "proletariat of horizontal fishing" was recruited from rural and urban bottoms, where there were practically no alternatives to hard work, the church created so-called "Magdalene houses" where repentant girls could live who wanted to break with the past and marry or even become nuns.¹⁵ With the start of the Reformation, Martin Luther's passionate sermons on combating depravity led many German cities to close brothels in an attempt to eradicate prostitution.¹⁶ However, the demand remained, and the offer remained. Brothels moved to neighboring cities or switched to illegal status, which only worsened the situation in the sphere of sexual life. The prices for services at the same time inevitably grew, and the control over the security of services disappeared. We find a similar situation in the modern world, where prostitution is illegal. Only in the XIX, and, especially in the twentieth century, the situation in the field of prostitution begins to change significantly. Gradually, women's rights and their education grew, as did their involvement in public life. Even for young peasant women, the brothel has already ceased to look like the only attractive opportunity to make a living without hard work. Gender assim-metry of rights and requirements has substantially decreased, as has gender segregation, as more and more professional spheres have become available to women.

However, marriage remains monogamous, although young people, mostly young men, can choose their own bride, and in the twentieth century also girls. The feeling of love begins to take an increasing place when choosing a spouse, which means and desired marriage. At the same time, the number of divorces increases, and the duration of the marriage is reduced. One of the main reasons for the divorce is adultery, and a visit to a brothel man is often equated to him or is even worse-as a betrayal of not only sensual love, but also emotional betrayal. Interestingly, until the twentieth century public opinion was much more tolerant of visiting brothels, and visitors to illegal brothels could be punished with monetary fines or tarnished reputation. Thus, in 1908, the professor of the Johns Hopkins University and the editor of several prestigious pioneer psychology magazines, James Marc Baldwin, was arrested during a raid in a brothel and the scandal that erupted as a result of this arrest thwarted his academic career in America.¹⁷ In today's socially protected society, there are increasingly single people who need only sporadic contacts with others, some of whom prefer to use the service in the sexual sphere. Thus, although the connotation of prostitution is more likely to deteriorate, the need for it remains and even increases, whether in real or virtual form. In the mass of modern migrants from Africa and Asia, aspiring to the rich countries of Europe, among whom 15-25-year-olds predominate, this need is just off scale, to which the host countries were clearly not ready. In almost all European countries, the zone of paid sexual services is limited and the protection of the priestesses of love is ensured. True, in some countries brothels are banned, which generates all kinds of surrogates and does not lead to higher moral standards of sexual relations and less prevalence of venereal and other vector-borne diseases. It is expected that pornography, sexual violence and pedophilia will spread more in countries where prostitution is prohibited.

Adultery

Therefore, most often, the subsequently awakening sexual desire of the wife led to the fact that she began to respond to the suggestions of other men who gave her attention and courting her. And the husband, faced with the original coldness of his wife, began to seek pleasures on the side, which was the easiest thing to do with the "priestesses of love." Even colder could be the relationship between the spouses if the wife was a military trophy obtained after the murder of her husband or brother, parents or other relatives, which in ancient society occurred quite often. Thus, monogamous marriage in its traditional form in patriarchal society generated both the need for prostitutes and adultery. True, in ancient Greece and in Rome, monogamous marriage was often combined with konkubinat, i.e. in the household were slaves, who could combine domestic cares with sexual service. According to Roman laws, this was not considered adultery, because the latter only applied to free-born citizens.¹⁸

In ancient Rome, according to Plutarch, an unfaithful wife could also be killed if her husband's family or her own family made such a decision. True, he does not give evidence of such murders. However, there was an alternative - the husband could send his wife back to her parents.¹⁹ this did not apply to unfaithful husbands who could have sex with other women without much consequence. But already in the IV century BC and in the next two centuries the aediles, the police overseers, could punish the seducers of married women.²⁰ In order not to expose his lovers to the risk of being punished for adultery, married women wore a blond wig - a sign of the difference between prostitutes.

During the Roman Republic, punishment, especially for the wife, persisted, but during the time of the empire the sanctions were significantly weakened.²¹ True, Augustus in 18 issued an edict on adultery, where for the protection of the family and the purification of the morality of the Romans, illegitimate sexual contacts were forbidden.² This kind of revolutionary intervention of the state in family affairs was hardly effective for the first time in history, however, one can imagine the scale of the problem, since the emperor had to resort to such decrees. At the same time, this decree became the basis for many centuries in the development of Roman family law. Constantine restored the punishment and in 321 a more severe version of the law on adultery, where the husband had the right to kill an unfaithful wife or divorce, while the wife could only divorce her unfaithful husband. In the Code of Theodosius, the punishment for adultery reached the burning of the infidels in a leather bag, which spoke more of the scope of the phenomenon than of the desire to reduce the population of Rome. Later, however, the punishment was reduced to expulsion from Rome and to the loss of a dowry.²¹

As we know, the disintegration of the world Roman Empire was accompanied by the creation of a Christian world led by the Roman hierarchs of the church. Christianity rigidly opposed its ideas about the sinfulness of sexual life outside of church marriage and strict monogamy to all pagan beliefs, where the idea of ​​original sin was absent and sex was seen as the basis of fertility and many other forms of productivity, regardless of the monogamy or polygamousness of family sexual relations. Monogamy was in the code of the Byzantine emperor Justinian in the VI century, where polygamy was banned. Assessing the general situation in the Middle Ages, Betzig writes that marriage, thanks to the efforts of the church, remained within the limits of monogamy, while sexual relations in real life were polygamous.²⁰ At the same time, the social admission for extramarital sexual relations among men during this period was much higher²² which was preserved until the twentieth century. Under the direct influence of the Christian church, right up to the Enlightenment, the legislation of many Christian cities and countries was merciless toward unfaithful wives, unlike ancient Athens, where her husband was instructed to drive out her unfaithful wife, but was forbidden to kill. True, if an unfaithful wife took sex for sex, then she was subject to the death penalty or punishment by whipping, at the request of a deceived husband who could forgive his wife. The lover of the unfaithful wife had to pay a large sum to the accuser in order to save himself and his mistress from punishment. It is interesting that in Riga in the 17th century an unfaithful wife could be rescued from a severe punishment by a lover, paying 10 stamps to her husband and 3 stamps to the city. Despite the harsh treatment of unfaithful wives, in literature and art, especially since the Renaissance, we constantly meet the same social characters: a wife's lover, an unfaithful wife, a cuckold husband and a prostitute. At the same time, in the admonitions applied to such stories, the sin of adultery was condemned in every possible way, which did not prevent the spread of these sins, for even in the stories themselves, the commission of sin looked very attractive. Since the marriage was up to the newest time, first of all, a financial transaction, and the main goal of marriage was procreation, the church did not always condemn extramarital sexual relations. In particular, in the conditions of a sharp decrease in the population as a result of wars and epidemics, the church turned a blind eye even to binary marriages and other forms of polygamy, and not just to extramarital sex. Thus, after the devastating Thirty Years War, when the population of German lands decreased fourfold (from 16 to 4 million), the Nuremberg kreistag on February 19, 1650 decided that "... from now on, for the next ten years, every man is allowed to have two wives".¹ Fuchs also cites the reverse example from Bochum's local law, which instructed her husband to look for helpers if he himself fails to impregnate his wife; fulfill my conjugal duty. Is it possible to consider such a polygamous relationship as an adulter? The mores of the high society of the middle Ages and the Renaissance did not differ at all in the sphere of sexual relations. The king could possess any married woman and the overwhelming majority considered it a great honor. His brothers and other relatives, as well as ministers and other courtiers of the upper circle, had almost the same opportunities and enjoyed them openly enough. For the rest of the nobles and representatives of the third estate, everything was limited to one mistress and not always they used her services openly. For married women, only open sexual relations with members of the royal family or the elite of the court increased its status. Sexual relations with a young man from an ignorant family could and tarnish her reputation. The loss of innocence by a girl could also be very painful for her reputation, especially in a small town during the Middle Ages.

Most often, especially from the Renaissance, the loss of innocence by young girls in the village and in the city paid off with known bonuses and did not exclude marriage. Experiences in bed could be very appreciated at the time of marriage, but not in all social circles. Often at seduction of the elect, that they die from love, in contrast to women who, in a parallel situation, only sought to create a suitable situation for sexual relations. Judging by the discussion of entertaining stories in Heptameron Margarita of Navarre, men believed that only cruel ladies reject sexual harassment of other men. Adultery could also help and marital life, in the conditions of very long absences of husbands, for the removal of sexual deprivation could significantly improve the mood and character of the lady. So in the third novel Matteo Bandello, a noble youth falls in love with a beautiful and noble lady, the wife of a very wealthy nobleman. "It gave her great pleasure to make fun of everyone, and quite often she was mocked at her knights." She did this with this young man. He, however, did not stay in debt and with the help of his sister lured the beautiful woman to his house and there repeatedly achieved his that the lady was very much to taste. "Since then, she no longer ridiculed anyone and became with all the affable and amiable." The possibilities for adultery were more than enough in the conditions of long separation of spouses. If the husband did not go away, which was rare, his wife could travel to the resort "for treatment" or to relatives, where more opportunities for sexual intercourse were revealed. The resorts went and the husband-burghers with the same purpose. In the 16th century, in the collection of novels of the Renaissance in the XXXVII novel of the anonym, the main character - a jealous husband - gets acquainted with these works specifically in order to learn all the ways that wives deceive their husbands in order to protect themselves from this. However, this did not save him from horns, for creativity in this sphere is inexhaustible, and adultery was almost universal form of sexual relations, so that it was easy to find helpers in this matter among men and women. It is clear that in this case, the love stories of husbands, up to the nineteenth century, were viewed as quite normal phenomenon, generating only the risk of being a victim of the revenge of the cuckold husband or a member of the seduced family, especially if they had a higher social status. In the criminal legislation of Ancient Rome, the murder of a lover and an unfaithful wife by an insulted husband was considered a crime, but not a heavy one, for which a short-term imprisonment or expulsion was required. Court chronicler Catherine de Medici late XVI - early XVII century Pierre²³ in his notes "Gallant Ladies" leads a whole gallery of murders due to jealousy. In this case, most often the victim was wrong wives, not their lovers.

Even in the XVII century in the State of Massachusetts was executed an unfaithful wife, which speaks of the very Puritan customs of its inhabitants at the time. Interestingly, even in the 1920s in the US, an adulter represented in public space could spoil a man's career, as happened with the ideology of behaviorism John Watson. His wife published love letters written to her husband by his doctorate Rosalie Rainer. As a result of the scandal, Professor Watson was forced to leave the university, and on this his academic career ended.¹⁷ As a woman achieves equal social rights and opportunities, the adultery has ceased to be criminalized in the area of ​​European culture for women, but remains in some countries as a factor of responsibility of the guilty party in the dissolution of marriage. If in the Antiquity, in the Middle Ages and in the following centuries, the need for extra-marital sex was born because of the specifics of monogamous marriage in a patriarchal society, then by the 20th century the woman became an equal citizen and gender segregation practically disappeared in the countries of European culture. Marriages, as a rule, are for love, which implies a completely satisfactory sex life with a loved one. Does this mean that the need for extramarital sex is coming to naught? Facts speak of another. As noted above, apart from the relatively recent factor of mass youth and youth migration from Africa and Asia, the sustainability and number of marital relations in European countries is falling, and the number of single people is increasing. Marriage has largely lost its economic and reproductive importance and increasingly there are long-standing partnerships without marriage, even in countries where there is no legitimization of these relations. The dissolution of marriage and partnership takes place in the era of the Internet much easier, because both sides easily find friends in electronic networks, which creates the feeling of ease of finding another partner and for a long relationship. This feeling is very deceptive, because virtual communication is completely irresponsible, while real relationships require such responsibility.

And in a modern marriage, the gender asymmetry of the development of sexual needs remains. Young men still have a pronounced sexual need before the end of puberty, which is primarily manifested in the intensity of masturbation, while girls do not even have such need after the puberty.²⁴ Since the first acquaintances occur when mixed companies appear during the school period, often the first marriages are made between peers or very close in age. For many years the husband's need, as a rule, significantly exceeds the need of the wife. So according to Australian studies, among 16-25-year-olds because of the lack of sex in partnerships, 28% of men and only 2% of women are dissatisfied.²⁵ In the late period of pregnancy and after the birth of a child, the woman also reduces this need, while the focus on her husband also decreases. The presence of children, in turn, imposes certain restrictions on sexual relations and in the subsequent period. To this, we must add that if a woman's sexual desire, due to her age hormonal cycle, drops sharply after 45-50 years, in men this decline is much slower and persists up to retirement age.²⁶ In all studies of human sexuality, a very similar pattern is found-at all ages men have a higher level of sexual need.²⁷

Since it is not always possible to successfully reconcile the intensity of sexual life, there is an interest in sex with other partners, which opens the way to adultery or to paid sexual services. It can also be said that changing the geopolitical situation, mass youth male migration from Asia and Africa, as well as the ineffectiveness of the traditional model of monogamous marriage, requires certain compensation to ensure satisfaction of sexual needs. As a result, it is found that despite the achievement of women's equality in the area of ​​European culture, other serious factors appear to preserve the social institution of prostitution and adultery.

In ancient and medieval European society, the monogamy of marriage in conditions of patriarchal relations and significant asymmetry in gender rights and requirements inevitably led to two persistent phenomena - prostitution and adultery. And sometimes these phenomena are not only crossed, but also coincide. Married women gave themselves to valuable gentlemen for money or other goods, and husbands turned out to be interested pimps of their wives. In general, we can agree with the sociologist Weitzer that legal prostitution is not a panacea for marriage problems, but it is not inherently harmful and allows us to better organize sexual relations in order to reduce all kinds of risks.²⁸ It is clear that in today's society there are enough lonely and sexually unsatisfied people for whom paid sexual services are the most acceptable alternative. As we approach our time, the factors that preserve these phenomena are an increase in the number of divorces and an increase in the number of single people who do not want to associate themselves with regular partners or do not have the appropriate cultural skills. Significant importance in maintaining adultery is also played by differences in the development of sexual need in men and women, as a result of which men retain a more active and prolonged sexual interest, addressed to more fertile women. Partner relationships are becoming increasingly unstable in the XI century, because of the fact that in the electronic age, both sexes are supported by the illusion of unlimited choice of partners. People easily part in the hope of finding another partner equally easy, which is not always the case. Most likely²⁹ the institution of marriage and family itself needs to be transformed in accordance with the changing real needs of people and ways of communication.

None.

The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest.

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