That's a bullshit made-up rule, designed by corporate lawyers who want to remove any possibility of a lawsuit. There's nothing immoral about dating an employee; it's a risky situation because the employee can feel pressured and harassed, or it can lead to conflicts of interest, undeserved promotions or bonuses etc.

That being said, if both persons are mature and cautious, the sky will not fall.

Who said anything about morality? This is precisely about conflicts of interest, mismatched power dynamics, and potential abuse of authority. It is a situation that should be avoided at all costs because it can be exceedingly corrosive for an organization.

So, should we also disallow any other conflicting personal relationships up the chain of command? Where do we stop? Romantic relationships? Family? Friends? All of them create the same conflicts of interest and mismatches power dynamics.

Ever heard of the word nepotism? This is not exactly groundbreaking stuff.

Thanks for the unnecessary remedial English lesson. You could try answering the question instead of acting like that, though. Hiring a qualified friend to work under you isn't 'corrosive to an organization'. So why is managing a qualified romantic partner so objectionable?

If your boss hires their frat bro from college as one of your peers, and said frat bro starts getting promoted faster to you, would you consider that to create corrosive sentiments? Whether said frat bro is qualified or not, you may start to question your boss’s objectivity.

I guess you kind of answered my question. You think that there should be zero personal relationships (you seem to be hung up on a frat one, but I'll extrapolate to friendships) between a boss and anyone under their chain of command? Good luck having success building a company where those people aren't allowed to be friends. Mandated personal indifference sounds more corrosive than your scenario.

No, I am just saying that care should be taken to reduce the appearance of impropriety when personal relationships are involved at work. The severity of the risk scales with the nature of the personal relationship (friend, lover, family). You seem to be trying to get me to say that this is a binary all-or-nothing thing, which is absurd.

It's about being in a position of power over the other person.

It's unethical to make advances on someone you hold power over because there's an implication that rejecting the advances could harm their career and their working relationship with the superior.

Exactly, I've seen lots of couples who met at or were both hired into the same group and sometimes reporting to each orher... a few times it went badly because they couldn't be reasonable and self-aware. Mostly it went fine and they were very productive, conscientious, and easy to work with. It depends on the people, and I see it as only one of many possible personel problems.

That's not inherently sexual assault. Does it have the opportunity to go wrong? Sure, if your relationship becomes linked with career advancement, and especially if it's coerced. But as long as that's not present I don't see any assault going on here.

It's not inherently sexual assault. I never said it was. It is, however inherently a huge conflict of interest, and, depending on the circumstances, is likely to be sexual harassment.

Even if the two people in the relationship are fine with it, and there is no abuse of the manager-subordinate power dynamics, and all the other problems associated with this...

It can create the perception that the reason Sally is getting a good performance review, is because she is sleeping with the boss. This is absolutely toxic to a workplace, and irresponsible of the CEO.

William Gates begs to differ.

Tell that to Melinda Gates.