Conservative Christian couples are being urged to share
passwords with their partners in a desperate bid to stop them being tempted
online.
The idea is that couples share email and email addresses.
If one spouse has a Twitter or Facebook account, the other is usually given the
password. The idea was mooted by the conservative Christian group
Focus on the Family urged husbands and wives to share one e-mail address as one
of many suggestions on preventing infidelity.
Christian blogger Jonathan Acuff who pens the popular
“Stuff Christians Like," said that a lot of Christians do this already. He shares one account with his wife Jenny, and estimates
that one-third of their married friends also use one e-mail address. He told
AP that he and his wife "cleaved our separate e-mail addresses and lit a
unity candle on Yahoo! that burns brightly throughout the virtual
landscape."
However the move is not considered that useful by some
Christian counselors. James Furrow, a professor of marital and family therapy
at Fuller Theological Seminary said sharing an account can be helpful if the
goal is promoting openness. But he said the practice can hurt a relationship if
it's meant "as an act of deterrence."
He said that the problem with that is it begins to become
the emphasis rather than the trust of giving the other the benefit of the
doubt. If you hand over your passwords it is based on an assumption that you do
not trust and still doubt your partner.