Why do women get involved with married men?

Today I saw a documentary on TV about Parveen Babi - the legendary Bollywood actress. It mentioned that she had been involved with several married men during her lifetime. Many other actresses viz. Hema Malini, Smita Patil, Sridevi etc. too went the same way. It made me wonder what it is that draws single, successful women who can have anyone they want, go for married men?

Now, I've had a middle class upbringing where any such relationships are severely frowned upon. The women are tagged as flirts of the first-order and with them lies the sole responsbility of a home being wrecked. The cheating man usually gets away scot-free as men are polygamous by nature and only succumb to women who encourage them. In the meantime, the entire episode serves as succulent fodder for gossip for ages to come. I wanted to delve deeper than this simplistic and one-dimensional look at such behavior.

I came up with many so-called theories in my introspection. Women on the whole are emotional and vain creatures. They need constant reminder of their beauty and charms and above all they need to feel "needed". A married man has more or less figured this out and thus holds all the aces when wooing a single woman who is a sitting duck. On the other hand, maybe the single woman is a calculating you-know-what who is out to get that promotion or break in her career by pleasing her married boss. Or maybe her ego gets an adrenaline boost when she can successfully woo an already vanquished man. Or maybe they are both victims of their former broken relationships and seeking comfort in each other.

I've come to realise there's no straight-forward answer to this question. I might as well ask why women date blond men or why some men date younger women. There are as many motivations for individual relationships as there are relationships. While there may be some women who are motivated by a fear of commitment or a desire to prove themselves by taking what belongs to someone else or the thrill of sneaking around or whatever, I'm sure there are just as many who didn't know a man was married until they were already involved, who knew him in some other context and fell victim to his tales of how his wife didn't understand him, or who simply view married men no differently than they do single men, because we live in a culture that largely dismisses the significance of marriage. If one answer--especially one a couple of lines long--could provide a blanket explanation for the behavior of all of the millions of people who fit in a given category or participate in a certain action, the world would be a much simpler place than it is in real life.

The fact is, we humans are complex beings and one simple cut answer does not offer an adequate or fully encompassing response to the above question.