The ancients said: "adultery borders on disaster" (奸近祸) — where there is an illicit affair, calamity is close behind.
The line is not a scare tactic; it is written in facts.
Infidelity looks like a matter of the heart; underneath, it is the bankruptcy of self-control. A person who cannot govern themselves will soon fail to guard anything else. Once that line is crossed, what follows is a chain: fear of discovery, a lever others can pull, blackmail, being cornered, a collapse of temper that turns to violence — one wrong step, and every step after is wrong.
Anhui (name withheld): a survey by the city's association of women prosecutors found that from 2010 to 2012, the city's procuratorate reviewed 38 criminal cases involving 39 defendants arising from marriage and family disputes; of these, 12 intentional-homicide cases involving 13 defendants stemmed from romantic or marital disputes — some eighty percent of all homicide cases handled in the same period. Fourteen cases left 20 victims, and more than a dozen families were destroyed.
Jiangsu (name withheld): from 2007 to 2011, the city's courts at two levels accepted 60 intentional-homicide cases, of which 32 arose from romantic or marital disputes — 53.33%; within those 32, about 13 began with an extramarital affair, roughly forty percent.
A note of caution: both sets are samples from particular places and particular years, not national rates. But they prove one thing well enough — romance and intimate relationships are high-risk ground for homicide. This is no small matter.
Behind every number is a named person: the affair, the discovery, the pressure, the loss of control, the violence — then the detention house, the courtroom, a family in pieces. And at the moment they took the first step, each of them was thinking the same thing: "nothing will happen."
The ancients had no statistics, but they had seen too many such endings, so they pinned it down in one line: where there is adultery, disaster is near.
This is not a curse upon you; it is a hand held up between you and harm.
The Four Books teach you how to stand in the world; the Caigentan (菜根谭) teaches you how to endure it.
None of this teaches you to be a pushover. You step back not out of fear, but because you can see farther.
The Five Bonds are simply how you should act.
There is no need to make it complicated. It comes down to one line: be filial to your parents, righteous to your leaders, respectful to your partner, courteous to your elders, true to your friends.
Hold these five, and you will stand firm as a person for life.
For those who fall short, it is not that they do not understand — they will not. And once you will, it is not hard.