According to one dictionary (the Cambridge, since you asked), morals are “the standards of good or bad behaviour, fairness, honesty, etc. that each person believes in, rather than to laws”. In other words, it’s not so much a matter of right and wrong but more a personal code, albeit one loosely conforming to a greater framework of generally accepted norms.
As with much of my life, my moral compass was largely set by my parents: growing up in the late fifties and early sixties seems an alien world now, but back then children did respect (fear) the police, were by and large polite, respected their elders and didn’t run around terrorising the neighbourhood. Well, in Farnham, anyway. School took over and reinforced this basic grounding, the result being that even today in my mid-sixties those values still hold firm, however old-fashioned they may now seem. They’ll do for me, they’ll see me out.
However, in the sphere of personal relationships, things were somewhat different. I had to make my own way here as my parents, while loving and supportive, didn’t do that kind of thing very well. At all, actually, thus I was left to trial and (mostly) error experimentation, and spending the years between twelve and seventeen at an all boys school didn’t exactly help much. Fortunately, there was the stereotypical Girl Next Door to, ah, help me out as it were. That the Girls Grammar School joined us in 1973 wasn’t exactly a hardship either.
However, there’s one particular aspect of my morals which runs counter to the general flow (although maybe not so much these days) and that’s relationships with married women. My first was in summer 1984 and since then there’s been eight more. Frankly, my take on this is very simple: it takes two to tango. Of course, it’s nothing like as black and white as I’d like to think it was, and I’ve no idea what soul-searching and anguish went on on their part. The only time I gave such a situation pause for thought was when it involved the wife of a close friend: ironically, that particular liason lasted twenty years, albeit intermittently.
Does this all make me a bad person ? To some, yes. Personally, I don’t think so: I’ve never stolen anything other than apples or someone’s pencils at school, bar one time I’ve never truly physically hurt anyone and while I know I’ve upset some people very much, it’s never been intentional. Even in the depths of my period of chemical & alcoholic excesses – and they were truly excessive – I tried to be a decent person, no easy task when you feel your very soul is unravelling, and I take strange comfort in this fact: none of my relationships with married women ever impacted on their marriages, because none of them were ever discovered, at least as far as I’m aware. In all but one instance they said “enough”, not me. I suppose that proves something, although what, I have no idea.
Bottom line: morals are a very personal thing, but the basics as far as I’m concerned are be kind, try not to hurt anyone, don’t steal, don’t break the law and treat people how you’d like to be treated.
