U.S. spouses cheat like the French -- but feel worse

Men in South Africa say they cheat instead of taking second or third wives, Americans lament that love has died in their marriages, and the Japanese believe ex-marital sex isn't adultery if they pay for it.

These are just a few of the cultural excuses for cheating on one's spouse as recorded by Pamela Druckerman, author of a new comparative look at infidelity titled "Lust in Translation: The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee."

On a world scale, men in African countries from Togo to Mozambique were most likely to have taken another sexual partner in the last 12 months, with as many as 37 percent saying they had been unfaithful in that time, according to data compiled by Druckerman.