PERSPECTIVE ON POLITICS AND PRIVACY : Unedifying Outbreak of Morality : One could argue that the sins of the flesh are the least important. Adultery, surely, is a private grief.

A political sex scandal involving David Mellor, the British secretary of state for national heritage, and actress Antonia de Sancha has sparked much debate about both the minister’s fitness for office and the media’s intrusion into privacy--issues that have also become factors in American politics.

Mr. Mellor should, of course, have remembered the advice of Arthur Hugh Clough:

Do not adultery commit.

Advantage rarely comes of it.

There is, however, something particularly unedifying in our present outbreak of public morality. What is important in deciding whether the minister is suited to his job is the ability, enthusiasm and intelligence he brings to it. It may be reasonable to suggest that his moral standards are relevant to this ability and that we, the electors, have, therefore, the right to a lively concern in the details of his private life. But even if this is true, where do we draw the line?

Some people might argue that the sins of the flesh are among the least important, distressing and embarrassing though they are to the husband or wife concerned. But adultery, surely, is a private grief. And what of the minister (if such there should ever be) who is brutal to his subordinates, uncaring of his aged parents, unkind to his children, given to kicking the dog or ungenerous and neglectful of his wife, even though the marriage remains intact? Are these delinquencies also to be exposed, even though they would hardly sell newspapers, and the man judged unsuitable for high office?

I am intrigued by some of the press comments about the Mellor case. One columnist suggested that the offense would have been less heinous had the woman concerned been intellectually and socially more Mellor’s equal. Does this mean that adultery is condoned if it takes place in a five-star hotel with a woman who is beautiful, rich, intelligent and high-born, but is judged reprehensible if it takes place on a mattress in a sleazy flat? Is a colleague or a secretary more acceptable as an illicit partner than an actress?

Would the press be less judgmental if the actress in this case had been a star of the South Bank and in work? And what about prominent people who are not ministers? It could be argued that a newspaper proprietor occupies a position of very considerable power. Are we entitled to demand that he, too, is kind to his children, aged parents and animals, considerate to his subordinates and faithful to his wife?

I would find this scrubbing around to discover fresh scandals to bring a man down less distasteful if newspaper editors had been as diligent in seeking out and exposing the delinquencies of Robert Maxwell, the former owner of the Sunday People newspaper (which first published the Mellor story).