Talk:Adultery

message: There is currently no information on the law in California apart from there being no adultery law there as of 1996. There is the potential for curiosity over the law in that state considering the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, adapted into a film in 1967, is set in California and contains a well known example of adultery in popular culture and a threat to prosecute the unmarried partner. In December 2014 User:John Paul Parks added a note in the article about the film saying "In 1967, the year in which the film was made, adultery was a criminal offense in California. See Cal. Penal Code §§ 269a, 269b (repealed 1975)". The note has since been removed and I cannot imagine any such reference appearing in that article soon considering trivia sections are discouraged on Wikipedia. Such a reference might be better mentioned in this article considering it is about a real life adultery law. I have so far not been able to find any reference to a former adultery law in California but most web sources I found claims that the state has no adultery law as it has no-fault divorce which was introduced there in 1970. Tk420 (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adultery law in California 

message: Utah decriminalized adultery in 2019, as it states in the article. It would be nice if someone could update the map. Galaxy1011 (talk) 08:00, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adultery US law map needs updating 

message: Several parts of this article refer to a "double standard" between male and female adultery as though this is some heinous bigotry; I note here that the ENWP article for double standard itself begins: "A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same."
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that male and female adultery are not identical in consequences, due to mater semper certa est. A husband who is unfaithful to his wife cannot trick his wife into thinking any resulting children are her own; a wife who is unfaithful to her husband can. Given the enormous time and material investment associated with parenting, which most wish to reserve for their own children, this creates a fundamental asymmetry in the crime (one that has partially been rectified in the modern day via paternity testing, true, but that is not retroactive), and thus an asymmetry in the punishment is not unjust.
There is currently no connection drawn between the sex-specific nature of uncertainty of paternity and the asymmetry in punishment, which I think overly dismisses ancient customs. Magic9mushroom (talk) 08:41, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: If anything, the act of a married man having sex with an unmarried woman (the act less likely to be punished historically) was one of the most socially harmful acts, because it led to illegitimate children, which historically in most cultures suffered a dire fate of ostracism and discrimination, and this also led to social problems such as poverty and criminality. By contrast, a married woman bringing into the family a child fathered by a man other than her husband did not lead to such problems as such children were born into the legally protected state of marriage. As for "the enormous time and material investment associated with parenting" that you refer to, this is a modern view, as historically it was 'quantity' favored over 'quality' (large families with very high child mortality rates), and children were seen as an asset to the family due to their involvement in child labour. And, with regard to adultery, STIs were a major concern too, especially as historically there weren't modern treatments for them, so wives of unfaithful husbands could be put at serious risk due to their husbands' infidelity. Now, you may argue that it was emotionally traumatizing for a man to raise a child potentially not biologically his, but personal emotional hardship was not that high on the agenda historically, and if you take emotions into account, there is no reason why women's emotional suffering in case of their husbands' infidelity should not be taken into account. The reason why the article implies that the practice was 'bigoted' is because modern sources assess it like that, in that, the main reason for the double standard was related to the low status that women occupied in those societies, especially the extreme legal and social inequality between husband and wife.2A02:2F0F:B0FF:FFFF:0:0:6463:D6FB (talk) 01:08, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: "led to illegitimate children, which historically in most cultures suffered a dire fate of ostracism and discrimination" Not necessarily for various royal bastards or papal bastards who were elevated to the nobility, such as Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Cleveland or Cesare Borgia. Bastards of wealthy merchants (such as Sarah Bernhardt) and wealthy lawyers (such as Leonardo da Vinci) were also taken care off by their fathers or extended families. Dimadick (talk) 04:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: If a child was born out of the relation of a married man and an unmarried woman, such child did not have any automatic protection like a child born into marriage, and the situation of such child was, in most cases, dire. If the father acknowledged the child (which rarely happened) the situation of the child would improve, but in most cases the child would still suffer legal and social disadvantage. 2A02:2F0F:B0FF:FFFF:0:0:6463:D6FB (talk) 06:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Double standard" 

message: The current lede (recently changed) reads:"Adultery (from Latin adulterium; ad- +‎ alterō, “I change/alter [one lineage for another”]) is extra-marital sex partaken by a spouse, or premarital sex partaken by a betrothed person, that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds." 
:The paragraph is unsourced. Although the definitions of adultery vary, it is not commonly understood to include premarital sex, except in Islam (where it includes all premarital sex, regardless of the existence or not of betrothal). (John Calvin had a similar interpretation, but this is not mainstream in Christianity).  
:Please see the dictionary definitions of adultery.   . Also note that the lede should focus on the current understanding of the concept of adultery, rather than on historical ones.
:As for etymology, the (Latin) etymology of the word is: "adultery is from adulterāre (“to pollute, defile, commit adultery”), a word formed ultimately from the Latin elements ad- “to, near” and alter “other.”)..2A02:2F0F:B205:E200:5459:82A1:28DF:5830 (talk) 15:06, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Meaning: betrothed to someone else. You see, in the Bible there was no betrothal. Ancient Jews did not have betrothals. They had two ceremonies: marriage and consummation of marriage. That's why St. Joseph was Virgin Mary's husband. tgeorgescu (talk)  15:31, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The current lede implies that adultery includes infidelity where neither party is legally married. Not only that adultery is not usually understood to include this today, but even in a historical context, the concept of adultery often required the existence of a lawful, valid marriage. For example, sexual intercourse between an unmarried girl/woman, who was in an arrangement  where a future marriage was to be expected (ie. betrothal, engagement, promised into marriage etc) but where such marriage had not yet taken place, and a man other than the one she was supposed to marry, was not usually adultery (obviously it varied by culture). This does not mean that such behavior was not punishable, but often it was punished differently (less severally) than adultery. The very concept of adultery often relied on the proof that a valid marriage had been contacted. (And most contemporary definitions of adultery are sex between a married person and a person other than their spouse).2A02:2F0F:B205:E200:104B:E29F:EA3A:E762 (talk) 17:13, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Current lede