The Bible says "Thus shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife". Accordingly to Carl Jung's analysis, Christianity from the East was meant for barbarians in the West, like having sex outside of marriage, in the past, almost always led to unwanted pregnancy and ruined lives, so it made perfect sense to preach against it! The interesting point is, the barbarian would covert his neighbor's wife! A cultured gentleman on the hand usually won't, but he would certainly need to control himself from temptation originated from the gentle sex, especially one who is young, beautiful, rich, single, and who takes the initiative! And hence that says the fifth test for Taoist Grandmaster Lu (呂祖), which essentially said our master, a married man, due to his compassion wanted to help a young lady. This beautiful poor girl turned out to be rich, and being grateful to our master would like to have sex with him, thus offering herself to him for three nights. Needless to say, our master controlled himself well, and kept his promise to help the lady during the three days, and without condemning her as a messenger of evil spirit (as the legend goes, she was sent by the master's teacher to test his devotion).
A message for the modern man: It might be easy for the modern man not to covert his neighbor's wife, and hence this Commandment tends to be losing its metaphorical effect. On the other hand, this metaphor of our Taoist master does sound more relevant to the more cultured modern man, and touches his soft spot.
Can you stand up to the test?
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