Do French People Cheat More? Infidelity, Mistresses

Tutorial Transcript

But if you're looking to really rank France in terms of the list of the most unfaithful countries in the world you're not going to find them at number one Salut youtube in today's video I'm going to tackle something that I've wanted to talk about for a while now which is the cliché that French people cheat more often on their partners or are more likely to have mistresses and secret liaisons more than most other cultures. This is a little bit of a sensitive topic you're talking about cheating you're talking about infidelity lies deception and culturally these things have different definitions and they have different meanings and they have different levels of importance from one culture to another I've heard things like well you know why they have one-hour lunch breaks don't you? It's so the men can go off and visit their mistress during the lunch break! Or did you know in French there's the same which is cinq à sept and it's referring to 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. which are the hours of the day where men go to visit their mistresses? or there was my own personal example when I was doing long-distance with a French guy and I had so many comments like long-distance with a Frenchman ha good luck with that! But it is actually really hard to pinpoint where this particular cliche came from maybe it was the Kings and all of their countless mistresses that they had but I find it a bit hard to believe because I'm pretty sure that every King in the course of history has always had their little bit on the side. Maybe it's because Paris is such a symbol of romance and love and seduction and we kind of just make the link subconsciously. Or don't we just all love it when a cliche becomes a reality and it kind of gets proven I think we can all remember when the French president Francois Hollande was caught scooting off to see his mistress in the middle of the night so obviously the media outlets just all lapped it up. I've been doing some research to try and figure out how much truth there is in this cliche do Frenchmen all have mistresses on the side well let's have a look at the facts. In Jo Piazza's book 'How to be Married' where there's a whole chapter dedicated to French attitudes around marriage and coupled life she did find that 47% of French people deem it morally unacceptable to have an affair in a marriage compared to 84% of Americans so there is a difference in attitude. But if you're looking to really rank France in terms of the list of the most unfaithful countries in the world you're not gonna find them at number one. According to a global Durex and statista study which investigated the levels of unfaithfulness or the amount of people in any given nation to admit that they've cheated on a partner in the past or on the current partner the number one most unfaithful country is Thailand. Closely following you've got Denmark on 46% third equal goes to both Italy and Germany on 45% and then coming in fourth place you've got la France on 43%. What I find quite interesting is that there's such a cliche about the French in particular if we're actually looking at the rankings why don't we say oh those Germans you know how it is or can't trust the men in Denmark can you? While some studies do vary, so you've got some studies saying look France is absolutely no different at all to Italy Spain I mean there's many countries in Europe that have around about the same level of cheating of infidelity what they all tend to point to is the fact that the French are just a little bit more tolerant and open-minded around the concept of cheating. So this is taking me on to my next point which is here in France I think there's just a different cultural approach and attitude to cheating which maybe fuels some of the stereotypes that we have about French people. Cheating isn't such a taboo topic it can be spoken about more it can be debated more it can be discussed more here and it's list of an all-or-nothing concept then what we're maybe used to in more anglo-saxon cultures I think there's just a less conventional and uptight kind of approach to sex and relationships in general over here and so it translates that there's a less uptight approach to things like cheating as well some of these things can be a lot more visible like for example the fact that at dinner parties people in relationships with their significant other beside them may being a little bit flirtatious over here that can be kind of seen as a way to have fun and it's not necessarily a betrayal and cheating and and you know a gateway to extramarital sex another more visible thing that you can sometimes see in France is that there'll be advertising concerning mistresses so on Valentine's Day I mean it's a little bit of a joke of course but I'm sure this would never happen in the US there'll be an ad from a jeweler and there'll be you know jewelry like a nice necklace and it will say buy one and get one free don't forget your mistress this Valentine's Day and another quite visible thing is that you know sometimes we see the French attitude towards cheating and we're just like why don't they care? I mean a classic example is this Francois Hollande scandal as anglo-saxons it's quite hard to swallow because you think he's the president of France you know he should be sitting an example he's not trustworthy he's a bad guy you know if he can cheat and lie and be a bad person in his personal life then he could do that as the president he's not a moral character. The French outraged about this particular topic came from the fact that the media made a big deal out of it and that it was a private matter that wasn't kept private that's where the outrage came from they don't really mind that their president has a mistress that he's going to, it doesn't change anything about the man his capability and his capacity to be trustworthy honest and moral in the frame of his job so I think when we see that and they're saying you know it's not a big deal get over it we think to ourselves like why isn't a big deal why don't you think that cheating is a big deal? I think in general I think a lot of French people have the capacity to be very sort of realistic and grounded and and sort of open minded on the topic of cheating. In Aziz Ansari's book Modern Romance, he actually investigators you know with with younger French people and asked them a lot of questions around their thoughts and feelings around infidelity and you know a lot of these thematics came up like you know maybe it's too idealistic to expect to be just faithful to one person for an entire lifetime maybe it's not so natural. They even said things like I think in the back of everyone's mind at least in Paris we do wonder whether staying monogamous you know forever is really a realistic possibility and it's interesting in all of this and the French are actually the nation in the world the most likely to forgive a cheater so again that tolerance level is higher than what we may be used to it was that French Institute of public opinion again who surveyed 39 countries and they found that France were number one on the list with 69 percent of French people saying that they could love someone again if they had an affair or if they cheated on them so it may just be that the French culture aren't necessarily as harsh about infidelity as anglo-saxon countries as you know where if a man cheats on his wife he'll get shunned by the wife by her family by the community he's a bad person and what's quite interesting is that France has lower divorce rates than a lot of its European neighbours. It has lower divorce rates than the UK Belgium Sweden Germany. It is definitely a cultural aspect that if cheating does happen within a French relationship it's not absolutely compulsory that that is the end of that relationship that's a real reason why we should get divorced or at least have years and years and years of couples therapy. I'm not saying that anyone wants to be cheated on, French people are people and cheating hurts and you know they don't want to be cheated on of course the French may be more realistic and open-minded about it all but in general it's not something that anyone I know here living in France would actually want to go through and all of my friends who are in committed and monogamous relationships are all hoping for the same thing. So that's it for this video guys I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic down below, I do read all of my comments and if you haven't subscribed yet please remember to hit that subscribe button so that we can see each other next week. Until then I'll see you guys in the next video A bientôt !