Adultery and Military

[anchala]

I was raised in cultures that it was OK for men to have multiple wives; my grandfather had 4 I know of and more that I don't know of, maybe not at the same time but every few years he changed and rotated to one lady or another. I now have countless aunts and uncles that I can not keep track of nor know what their names are. He sure was busy spreading his seeds. To my surprise given he has so many wives, he died at a fairly early old age alone, dirt broke and in debts, while all his mistress and wives took every penny he had. During a visit years ago, he had no idea who I was but kind of knew from my face I was one of his legal children that carried his last name.

As a teen, I lived in the middle east because my mother is married to a Muslim; it was and is permitted for any Muslim men to have 4 legal wives at any given time, it is his choice to make if he choice to have more because a divorce is simply "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you". A man's passport has 4 extra spaces to allow room for his wives to travel at the same time with him, the women there aren't accepted to travel on their own without an adult man accompany her. Needless to say, I am very disgusted by such culture, rules and laws that permit and accept adultery; or that a man is allow to mess around with multiple ladies while he is still legally married to one woman.

To my delight, given that we are living in a military town. My fiancee told me about how the military has such thing as "conduct unbecoming of an officer"; meaning adultery is consider an act that is unbecoming of an officer and gentleman which would prevent him/her from ever be promoted from the current position. There is also a possibility of him/her be dismissed from the military due to adultery depending of the seriousness or proves of each case.
"adulterous acts are prejudicial to good order and discipline or are of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces"

After doing a little research, I also found that an officer who committed adultery can be court martial-ed http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/bladulterydefinition.htmunder
under Paragraph 62. Article 134 of Manual for Courts Martial Definition, given that if an officer committed adultery while living in military housing can be removed the privilege of ever living on base housing again. "The misuse, if any, of government time and resources to facilitate the commission of the conduct"

I have to applause US government for taking such behavior seriously, I also wonder about the stress and pressure of being in the military. Does it make a person do wrong at times to rebel against their authorities? While the military provide good benefits to members of the arm forces, what would the reason be for people to behave in such a way that he/she would sabotage his/her life and career?

In such cases of adultery, no one really wins. Everyone get hurt due to a few individuals' selfish, thoughtless behaviors for a few hours of pleasure. But then again, who am I to say who is right or wrong? In other parts of this world, it is not a crime to have a few wives and have a few dozen bastard children from different ladies. I don't like it because I came from such a family.

I suppose only those individuals involved can say if it is moral for him or her, and that he/she can sleep peacefully at night knowing that the children would suffer needlessly due to lack of resources and disharmonous up bringing.