It occurred to me today that there’s a lot of adultery going around.

Before you get too far into this, I feel it necessary to warn you: there’s a decent chance that something in this post will offend you, for I have included a couple of different topics that could be considered offensive. Please understand in advance that this is not my intent. Rather, if anything you read after this sentence offends you, you might want to ask yourself why.

Today’s word of the day is ‘cuckold’. I’ll bet you haven’t recently –if ever– heard this one. A cuckold is a man whose wife is adulterous. The first time I ever saw this word was in The Wife of Bath’s Tale, which is one of the Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. If you haven’t read the Canterbury Tales, I wouldn’t advise it unless you have a strong stomach; a lot of it is just filthy smut. This is the height of irony, since the book is supposedly a collection of stories that are being told by religious pilgrims who are on their way to a holy shrine.

Anyhow, if you are looking for one of the stories to read, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, wouldn’t be a bad choice. It’s less sleazy than the others.

Anyway…

I’ve often wondered, when I think about the word ‘cuckold’, how it would feel to be in that position. I’m sure it would suck. I’m sure it would be painful. Thankfully, I am lovingly devoted to a woman who is lovingly devoted to me, and I take comfort in knowing that I don’t –as long as I keep up my end of the bargain– have much to worry about, when it comes to marital infidelity.

Nevertheless, I’ve recently become somewhat more familiar with what it must feel like to be a cuckold.

“How?” you ask…

When you think about it, we all have different types of relationships in which we are all engaged. Marriage is a common example of a relationship type, but most of us also have friendships, business relationships, and familial relationships that affect us in different ways, as well. Each of these relationships has the opportunity for infidelity in them, inasmuch as we could be betrayed –cheated on– by a friend or a family member or a coworker. Additionally, we have relationships, as individuals, with different groups to which we might belong. When the group fails us, we might also feel… like cuckolds.

* * *

I’ve recently become more familiar with what it must feel like to be a cuckold, largely because I have been abandoned by a group of people to whom I have been very loyal, for as long as I can remember. This group gained my allegiance early on in my life, because I believed that I shared a common set of beliefs with the other members of this group. I thought that this group represented decency and truth and goodness, all things that I have sought after in my life.

But, they left me; they went off, attached at the hip to someone else, someone with whom I couldn’t stomach associating myself.

When they left, I felt alone. I felt betrayed. I had questions about what had happened, questions that no one could answer. Some of the (former) members of that group felt the same way that I did, confused and questioning. Others were still following the group, heading off in a direction that I could never have foreseen the group heading.

And now, I don’t know what to do, but playing the cuckold sucks. I’m trying to figure out if I should move on, or if I should wait for this group to come to its senses. Other (former) members of the group are taking steps to try to shed some light on what is going on, to try to get the group to change its course, but I don’t know whether or not they’re going to be successful.

I keep asking myself, “Did I change? Did I do something wrong? Am I to blame for what happened, for the fact that I am here alone, while the rest of my team, most of them, are running around with someone else?”

I’m speaking, of course, of the Republican Party. They’ve cheated on me, and I’m not sure what to do about it.

I am the cuckold.

* * *

Well, if that didn’t get you going, this one might.

If you’ll allow me, for a quick moment, to have a brief religious monologue, I’d like to discuss a couple of Biblical examples of cuckolds. The most obvious example of a cuckold in the Bible, at least in my mind, is Hosea. God instructs Hosea, at the beginning of the Book of Hosea, to go and marry an adulterous woman –on purpose– so that Hosea will come to know how horrible adultery is. Hosea’s wife, Gomer, is eventually unfaithful to him, and God instructs Hosea to take the steps that are necessary to bring her back to him. This heart-breaking book, in its entirety, is only fourteen chapters. Read it sometime, and see if it doesn’t give you a better sense of what it would be like to be abandoned, betrayed, and rejected.

Of course, if you’ve read Hosea before, then you know who I’m going to talk about next, as the greatest of all cuckolds.

God is the greatest of all cuckolds. He’s been cheated on by us.

You’ve left Him and I’ve left Him and America has left Him.

The world has left Him.

We’ve all cheated on Him with our silly idols –all of them of no consequence– and I can’t imagine Him, any other way just now, than just sitting in Heaven and weeping, for having been made the cuckold.

We are the adulterers.

* * *

I know that I have, only recently, gathered some of you into my readership. I guess I wouldn’t blame you if you decided that I am not as “worth reading” as you’d previously thought. I could promise you that tomorrow’s post will be about cupcakes or rainbows, but… who knows?!?!

In any case, I’m doing this writing for me, like it or not.

You’re reading this on the day after an election in Michigan, but I’m writing it on the evening of that election. These thoughts have been on my mind, and will probably continue to be on my mind, for at least the next ninety-one days, if not longer.

I’m sorry if I hurt you. It hurt me to write this.