COMMENT | We all share this uncomfortable reality. Affairs are commonplace; we all know a story of adultery. There seems to be a certain kind of inevitability to it.

Belgian psychotherapist Esther Perel has shown through her research that humans might not be monogamous in nature. The marriage institution of a man and a woman is something we created socially, not necessarily based on biological, emotional and psychological truths.

Although we abhor adultery, it is one of the oldest legal, moral and religious offences that has been sustained till today.

If the law is a reflection of our preferences, then it means that we still want to be loyal, we still want to congratulate spouses of integrity, we still want to make marriages last.

Therefore, it would be premature to place any moral judgments on a person like MACC chief Dzulkifli Ahmad, who is alleged to have had an affair with a woman in Bali, Indonesia.

Should the allegations be true, our understanding does not stretch to how his marriage is like and what kinds of struggles his family is experiencing.

However, choosing not to morally condemn Dzulkifli (photo) as a person does not mean we are morally condoning his alleged affair.

The complexity of love and desire in a marriage and a person’s life is not easily placed on a spectrum of good and bad. So I will always reserve my moral judgment in such situations.

But there are two questions that we can discuss: one, why do powerful men cheat? And two, should a cheating man be allowed to hold public office...