Adultery and the Law

Key to addressing the question is: what is the point of prison? I don't think the point of lock-up is punitive damage against the perpetrator. That's what civil courts are for. As far as the government is concerned marriage is a civil contract. Any violations of the contract , without violations of the law, do not fall under the purview of criminal justice. It's a risk both parties take when they sign the contract.

 

^^^What Hektore said.

 

This is much like what I would have said. I think there needs to be acknowledgement in divorce proceedings that adultery constitutes a breach of contract, and thus ought to negatively impact the position of the adulterer when the resolution of the broken contract is achieved.

That seems only fair to me, unless stipulation by both parties was made before witnesses or in writing at the time of marriage that monogamous fidelity was not expected of either partner in the marriage.

And here's where I would say something very different. I have something of a problem with secular society trying to legislate morality. I have an enormous problem with criminalizing consensual sexual behavior of nearly any kind between legal adults. I think it is a slippery slope, and never ends well. This is not to say I condone adultery. But I think there is a difference between what I may not approve of, and what I believe no one should be free to make their own decisions about.

I am quite clear that, although I do generally and casually believe that adultery, like other forms of lying and cheating, probably indicates a need for therapy and self-work in an individual, I find no compelling reason to criminalize it. Contracts are breached every day, and we do not hand out criminal punishment for the act, unless willful fraud was perpitrated-- which is hardly the norm. I heartily approve of there being consequences in civil court for adultery. But not criminal court: the problem simply does not belong there.

 

Adultery: Causes a lot of batteries, aggravated batteries, attempted murders, murders, assaults, assault with a deadly weapon...divorces, etc.

A lot of social ills arise out of adultery. The law should technically be set up as to dissuade societally unproductive behavior. But it's so commonplace and glamorized that I'd imagine we'd keep our steady march toward sexual liberalization.

 

To be clear, I was not attempting a mitigating argument. I was simply sharing some personal experience.

There are myriad reasons for adultery happening. It is often a symptom of other marital problems, rather than a cause.

There are also many different outcomes. The whole murder/suicide/addiction, etc. type outcome is far from a "given". Forgiveness is just as common.

 

I'm not discussing divorce here, Joniemack. The way divorce is to be handled by the courts, with reconciliation as the first priority is all fine and dandy. However, if the divorce does go ahead regardless of all mediation by the courts, and the divorcing party has substantial proof of adultery having been committed by the other party, I do not see why there should not exist a legal framework to exist for the guilty party to lose out financially or on specific, divorce-related claims.

Further, none of the arguments you presented mitigate the act of adultery. Adults are adults are adults. They make their own decisions and are ultimately responsible for them. Even if we were to accept the argument of loneliness or inattentiveness by the other party, the party that ends up committing adultery can always "communicate" with their spouse and state their terms.

Besides, if you truly hope that your marriage can be saved through persistence and effort, doesn't it completely act against your objective to find comfort by jumping into the sack with someone else?

It's not a comparison. I was highlighting that both acts harm the society and are punished as such. It is clear as water is wet that you don't accept the "harm to society" argument when it comes to adultery. If you did, you wouldn't make these irrelevant points. If you accept that society was harmed as a result of adultery, you would have to accept that society (via the judiciary) may punish those individuals.

Also, I never said a couple can't reconcile over an act of adultery. In that arena it's a purely private matter.

Simply because an argument may derive from a religious context doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

Regardless, obviously law cannot be the mechanism that safeguards society.

I mean, what the fuck do we have movie classifications for, right?

(Notice the sarcasm.)

You are right. Nobody ever decided against committing a crime simply because of the potential legal consequences (fines, permanent court records, jail, death penalty).

Having lived in multiple cultures gives me great insight on the matter, even if it's biased.

No, adultery is far more widespread in cultures that do not penalize it.

You prefer that, because you accept that adultery is within the reasonable spectrum of actions an individual may take on the basis of a bad marriage for any multitude of reasons. I don't.

Ironically, the wrongfulness of murder was first established by religion and then dictated to its followers who propagated the same doctrine all over the world, and the ideologies of which are the basis for much of the legal systems in the US, Europe and Australia (and possibly other countries, but not certain on that).

On a personal level, I wouldn't wish for the justice system to dictate acceptable sexual practices (except where obvious: rape, child molestation, etc). It is also not what I advocated in this thread.

"Adultery" is not a sexual practice per se. It only occurs when the spouse does not give consent for the other spouse to have sexual relations with a person outside of the marriage.

Then there's nothing for us here to disagree on.

 

Adultery causes none of those things, nobody is made to assault someone because they were cheated on. How the aggrieved parties chooses to respond is their own responsibility. Lest we forget: two wrongs don't make a right.

Murder was okay before we established religion? I'm calling b.s. There is no evidence that murder was any more or less common before or after the start of religion nor that they were the cause of any of those nonexistent changes. Not only that - I can hardly imagine a sentiment more disparaging of our human dignity and faculties than one of that stipulates we didn't know it was wrong to murder without being told to so.

 

The last thing this country needs Is the government determining morality.

 

I need some more batteries for my.... ooh.

agreed

 

Adultery is not a justification of any of the mentioned crimes. However, you will have an extremely hard time trying to argue that the act of adultery is never connected with any one of those crimes. While it doesn't justify it, adultery does cause many instances of them.

Sorry to break your bubble on human dignity. Fundamentally, we're a bunch of bipedal animals with abnormally-high cognitive and linguistic skills. I don't see where you would argue our "sense of justice" came from, and how it developed.

I mean, a society would never declare murder as acceptable, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder#History

 

Adultery causes murder in exactly the same way that neglectful spouses cause adultery, which you spent a paragraph railing against just a few posts ago. I mean isn't it the case that 'Adults are adults are adults. They make their own decisions and are ultimately responsible for them. Even if we were to accept the argument of loneliness or inattentiveness adultery by the other party, the party that ends up committing adultery violence can always "communicate" with their spouse and state their terms.'

Maybe we should make marriage a crime because without marriage there wouldn't be all these adulterers ruining society.

Us bipedal apes have a history and if a decent conscience wasn't part of that history we'd have never lasted long enough to develop religion.

I almost can't believe that I need to point out that cultural forces can make us do things that run counter to our basic natures. If you think that the existence of an honor culture is somehow a revelation to me; it isn't.

 

Like it or not, infidelity and the like is often the motivation for a lot of aforementioned crimes. Don't conflate causation with necessary conditions.

 

It was deliberate; sarcasm.

A tool, if you like, to point out the other things being conflated: motive and action.

 

pretty much this but i'd rather we didn't accept adultery so easily. satisfying (for the most part) sexual desires that are just proof of an uncommitted relationship seems like a problem with the relationship and the people.

not enough self control to handle the relationship = shitty SO

 

Replace the word Adultery with Sports team enthusiasm, or many other divisive issues and it comes to the same thing. The law should forbid the batteries and murders, not the excuses we have to commit them. Maybe we should make sure to tell people that there is no excuse for beating the crap out of our fellow citizens and teach them more productive means of problem resolution. But locking them up is easier, so...
--- merged: Dec 14, 2011 1:40 PM ---

Adultery doesn't cause any of that. It's an excuse to do those things to people who have that particular bent, nothing more.

As far as condoning murder, you might want to read the old testament. ( Oops, or the Torah ) Lots of murder is deemed ok for society, via religion. Lots of stoning of people in there, including rape victims. Heck, even the new one. Something about witches in that one.

The Corsican society, weren't they overtly religious?

Study some anthropology, you might be surprised how long murder has been frowned upon. Even 'animals' don't murder with impunity, at least within their group.

 

The government has no place in criminalizing adultery and despite the fact that several states still have laws on the books with criminal sanctions, I suspect they would be found unconstitutional if challenged.

We can also go back to branding adulterers with a big A and maybe post their pics on an adulterers database.

 

Would be cool if there was such a databse, you could find out who all the easy women are in your town.

 

I get your point, you're drawing a distinction and emphasizing personal responsibility. However, this also begs the question of how you define "cause." If you mean cause as in heating water will cause water to boil (as in absolute certainty) you may be correct. Cause as I am using it however, means bringing about a set of circumstances that greatly increases the probability of a result. Adultery unquestionably causes a lot of social ills.

I have yet to see a sport-team motivated criminal case cross my desk. On the other hand, every other case I have involves adultery and jealousy.

We already tell people there's very limited excuses for offensively touching other people. Again, adultery brings about an intensity of emotions not commonly seen.

Show me one case motivated by politics or sports team and I'll show you a dozen motivated by jealousy over a spouse.

 

But will making adultery illegal stop those cases from occurring or will it just result in one more charge to be filed?

I think the latter.

 

Good point. But does criminalizing domestic violence stop domestic violence? (Yes & No. I imagine if Adultery is enforced the same way as Battery it'll become less prevalent).