Abstract
Marriage and infidelity have customarily been conceptualised in the disciplines of philosophy, religion, politics, and science. This study drew on Foucauldian Theory to interrogate representations of marriage and infidelity in psychology. As a dominant knowledge system, psychology’s influence on marriage and infidelity has increased with the rise of and access to technology in the 21st century postmodern era. Psychological knowledge shared on media platforms such as TED Talks has played a role in the perpetuation and creation of certain central societal discourses and ‘subject-positions’ related to marriage and infidelity. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis enabled the investigation of three points of intersection: discourse, power, and subjectivity in marriage and infidelity. In terms of its theoretical contribution to the discipline of psychology, the study augmented Foucault’s theory of subjectivity by elucidating a psychology of the subject. Having implemented the main Foucauldian analytical threads as an archaeology of psychology and genealogy of marriage and infidelity, formulating a psychology of the spouse detailed the subjectification of spouses. Accordingly, the dataset of TED Talks revealed that the ‘happily-married’, ‘monogamish’, ‘betrayer’, ‘deceived’, and ‘metaverse’ spouses were presented as available ‘subject-positions’ for husbands and wives. Consequently, the prized marriage, forever marriage, servitude marriage, infidelity escape, infidelity trauma, and infidelity servitude discourses were exposed in the TED Talks given by psy-experts. For psychologists who work with spouses, the ‘subject-positions’ and discourses identified in analysis could be used to enhance understandings of clients’ subjectification thereby enhancing how psychology understands and challenges dominant marriage and infidelity discourses.
Keywords: psychology, marriage, infidelity, Foucault, Foucauldian Theory, Foucauldian Discourse Analysis