Talk:Adultery/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Citation contradicts article: "Adultery often incurred severe punishment, usually for the woman and sometimes for the man"

This article needs the attention of someone with a knowledge of legal history. I've just looked through the reference for Footnote 2 "The doctrine and law of marriage, adultery, and divorce" at Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=mt0TAAAAIAAJ .

• In multiple cases the reference directly contradicts the article's claim that, "Adultery often incurred severe punishment, usually for the woman and sometimes for the man".

Possibly the error was the results in merely searching the book for the term "adulteress" and "adulterer" and counting the results. Searching on punishment give additional results.

1. https://books.google.ca/books?id=mt0TAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA485#v=onepage&q=punishment&f=false Capitol punishment for the adulterer (man), expulsion of the woman "adultress" from the house.

2. https://books.google.ca/books?id=mt0TAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA491#v=onepage&q=punishment&f=false In the Marian Islands the offense is not punishable in the woman; but if the man offends, the woman and her relations waste his lands and turn him out of the house.

3. https://books.google.ca/books?id=mt0TAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA492#v=onepage&q=punishment&f=false If the adultery be committed with a woman of inferior caste, and by force, the possessions of the adulterer are confiscated and the possessions of the adulterer are confiscated, his person mutilated, and he is carried round the city on an as : for adultery with a woman of inferior or equal caste, and by fraud, the adulterer forfeits his estates, is branded on the forehead, and banished from the kingdom. These laws of Shaster apply to the higher castes. If a man of low caste commit adultery with a woman of high caste, he is tied on a hot plate and burned to death; while adultery of the higher caste with lower castes may be compensated for a trifling fine. A Brahmin suffers only the loss of his hair : but the wife of a Brahmin is subject to severe discipline if the crime be committed with the higher castes; and if she offends with a lower caste she is punished by the loss of her hair, a nauseous unction, and a procession on an ass through the city, …

4. https://books.google.ca/books?id=mt0TAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA504#v=onepage&q=punishment&f=false every person, the man as well as the woman

There are more instances in the book. For example ancient Jewish law decrees that both the man and the woman be put do death. I didn't continue searching because of point B below.

What we can see so far is that the reference contradicts the claim in the article that generally only the woman was punished. Generally both were punished, generally with a similar level of punishment. And in cultures were the punishment was not at a similar level, it was more often the man who was put to death, with the woman having her head shorn, being put out of the house, etc.

B. Even though the reference was written by someone with an MA from Trinity College Oxford. The author was at Oxford University, so I *assume* he had a good grasp of English, Scots, and biblical law, despite being a church minister and chaplin, and having no academic or professional qualification in law or legal history.

But what of other laws from other countries and from non-biblical history? The book was written in 1826 in a folksy style, with phrasing that indicates it wasn't based on understandings and stories, rather than reading the texts of the foreign laws.

Shouldn't a reference to what past laws are or were in foreign cultures be required to be written after reading those laws of those various foreign cultures? I don't know the answer, I am not an expert. So I did not update the article. But I suspect an additional more authoritative source reference should be found. Ideally an expert in legal history should provide aid.

Perhaps the current source reference could be left in place to indicate that generally both men and women were punished, but that sometimes the man was punished more severely. 2604:3D09:A87F:FD10:D133:49D6:4AC6:937D (talk) 07:26, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

(I've edited the foregoing to removed all the line breaks, making it MUCH easier to read.}

FWIW, I don't see anything that "contradicts the article" (and as noted above, I am NOT a fan of this article). If you were to become familiar with a few Wikipedia articles at random, you might note that they generally present differing opinions.

Sociologically, it's settled fact that males are generally much less enthusiastically punished for adulterous acts than are females in similar circumstances. This may vary somewhat, due to the social status or caste membership of those involved, but nevertheless holds.

What is "on the books" (whether legal or religious) really doesn't matter much. Even if the standard punishments are identical, a male often receives only token punishment (usually defended with some fiction such as that besmirching his ego or social standing is worse than being whipped) while a female is imprisoned or beaten or executed.

Too, there is the differential problem of traditional economic dependence by females. A male who is divorced by decree and run out of town can move along, find a job elsewhere, and reestablish. A divorced woman is treated as subhuman: having been sold to her husband by her family, she no longer has support either from her household or from blood kin, and may not even be allowed to work much less to receive a living wage.

You hint broadly that one of the sources is an MA candidate from Oxford. Really, these were obtained from a book written by an Episcopalian minister and published in 1826, so hardly the pinnacle of objective and thoroughgoing historical research.

I suppose if the article were to claim that adulterous men are ALWAYS punished less viciously than adulterous females, you might have a point. But in the end presenting a few variant opinions does little to push back against statements of "often" or "mostly."

It's great that you've found a source that supports your prejudice (indicated by "What we can see so far"), and therefore it maybe ought to be included by some registered editor or something, but it certainly doesn't overturn the article.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 15:29, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Adultery law in California

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)-edited