As the temperature got hotter this summer, the headlines got steamier, and the scandals got juicier. By now, everyone has heard that the perfect photographic couple, Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, have separated over his cheating ways. The story goes: 10 years ago (just before proposing to Christie), then 36-year-old Peter seduced and pursued aspiring singer Samantha Cole, then 18, whom he had met at a boat party and hired as an assistant in his office. Zebras don’t change their stripes, as the saying goes. Once a cad, always a cad. Now, history has repeated itself as the architect has lured 19-year-old wannabe singer Diana Bianchi, a toy store clerk, into a job as an office assistant and a subsequent affair—which has now torn his marriage asunder.

When I interviewed Christie a few years ago for a cover profile, I asked her to describe her marriage to Peter Cook, and tell me what she thought made a relationship work or fail. Her answer? “Well, honesty is the foundation that allows a couple to thrive. Peter is just such a great guy, and our lives are so intertwined.” Yup!

Not anymore. First Christie fled with the children to her parents’ home in California. Now they’re back in their Hamptons hideaway, and Peter ran home to Mommy. Despite his impassioned proclamation, through his attorney and Cindy Adams’s NY Post column, that he loves his wife and that his behavior was “an aberration,” Christie’s response has been cool. Even if she should have a change of heart, and want to let Peter come home, how could she, really, and still save face publicly and keep her self-respect?

Will Christie stand by her man? She didn’t when Billy Joel cheated. But Jacqueline Kennedy did. So did Ethel Kennedy, Coretta Scott King, and Jacqueline Brown (wife of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who fathered an out-of-wedlock child in 1999).

Sienna Miller is now standing by her man. After a brief interlude (during which she took off her engagement ring and was seen tooling around town with young British hunks), she and Jude Law seem to be a hot-and-heavy item, once again.

Whether for political reasons or not, Hillary and Bill present a solid team whose intelligence, humor, and affection for each other appears stronger than ever.

Liz Hurley stayed with her man, Hugh Grant, for five years after his 1995 L.A. arrest for lewd behavior in a parked car with a prostitute, and there have been subsequent rumors of their on-again, off-again relationship.

Nicole Mitchell Murphy separated from Eddie last year, and divorced him in April, after 12 years of marriage—and eight years after his arrest for picking up a prostitute.

After a 1993 sexual assault arrest in Denver, a then-pregnant Vanessa Laine Bryant stood by her man, L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant; the criminal case was dismissed a year later, and the civil case settled. Kobe gave Vanessa a $4M “I’m sorry for the infidelity” ring, the two had a “recommitment ceremony,” and their second daughter was born this past May.

Halle Berry split from R&B singer Eric Benét in 2004 after reports of his infidelity. She was not amused by or tolerant of the public humiliation.

And NY Met catcher Paul Lo Duca is being divorced by his wife, Sonia (Playboy model and mother of his toddler daughter), after rumors of his philandering reached her.

Ann Colley, whose then-husband, Bruce Colley, cheated on her in 2003 with a married Kerry Kennedy Cuomo (she has since dropped the Cuomo), takes solace in the fact that the “other woman” was at least a woman of substance. “I feel so bad for Christie,” she told me. “At least he cheated with someone prominent and not some 19-year-old kid!”

So why would these men choose to stray from striking sophisticates like their wives? Perhaps it is for power—to feel important, to be the one pulling the strings. Powerful women may make a man feel emasculated, insignificant, unnecessary. He may need a waif, a twinkie, a twit, an innocent—someone who will make him feel older and wiser, the one in control. I say it’s the “two-headed monster” in them. One head knows the right thing and the other can’t help itself … if you know what I mean!

Either way, cheating is not okay. Cheating is against the law. If you cheat in business, you can go to jail. Where is the punishment here? Under some extreme religious laws in other countries, the penalty is indeed severe—punishable by loss of a body part or two, even death. In this country, short of the occasional report of the drastic and illegal removal of the offending organ (a punishment once imposed by the notorious wife Lorena Bobbitt after her claims of rape, beatings, and emotional abuse from her husband), the usual consequence (divorce) seems mild.

Shakespeare’s Shylock demanded a pound of flesh for failure to repay a loan, a breach of promise. What about the theft of dreams, the cracking of personal trust, the consequences of a broken heart and home, and the long-term impact on children?

Adultery is a breach of promise, and should be considered a loss of property. The wear and tear on body and soul should be tax deductible. At least then, there could be some redeeming benefit for a wronged spouse, even if she does end up sitting in the lap of alimony-fueled luxury.

As far as Peter Cook, this architect has been condemned—and is in need of his own total renovation. For repeat infidelity is an illness as surely as any kind of substance abuse.

As for Christie, she will survive. Better change that lock and key before he’s ‘round to bother you. Sing that Gloria Gaynor tune with gusto. You go, girl!