Adultery

A discussion of how concepts of the ummah and the other inform different approaches to adultery in Shari'a law in particular in respect of women.

I am grateful to the School of Law, Sociology and Politics at Sussex University for the granting of permission to publish this article.

Adultery, also sometimes found in the form of incest, is a consensual physical correlation between two persons who are not in conjugal
relationship with each other. Adultery is considered sinful and wrong in Hinduism so much so that it is also unlawful and criminal under Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code.

In contemporary society, marriage is no doubt an individual relationship, a private affair of the parties, but more than that it is a social institution having complex social dimensions. Among Hindus, marriage institution since its inception, has been given prime importance due to certain religious, spiritual and social reasons. However, indiscreet importance of the law of divorce is an attempt to destroy all that is good in Hindu culture. If we consider marriage a mere contract, even then it cannot be said that it is the parties to the marriage whose interests have to be regarded in divorce proceedings. It is larger social interest which should be put above the individual interests of the parties. Steep increase in divorce cases even in the most materially advanced countries causes alarm and is considered as a menace to the social system. Trust among married couples is not only the social fabric which bounds them together, not only for this life but lives to come, but also a key factor for any legal remedy. Once this fabric torn off by either of the parties to marriage, solemnised or not, a pool of litigation flows from the relationship which leads to disturbance in the family and society. In this paper, attempts are made to analyse the relationship in marriage and in the nature of marriage and find out the status and rights of the parties involved in such relationships. Further, an attempts are also made to suggest corrective measures against the offender in such relationships.

La stanza di Andrea Trevisan is inspired by a dramatic event which took place at first in an isolated village in the Padua countryside, but then unfolded in Venice by involving some important judicial institutions of the Serenissima. Love, anger and enmities seem to unescapably push the protagonists toward a violent and tragic destiny. The emotional and sentimental background brings to light an enveloping narrative that outlines the main political and cultural features marking a republican power deeply rooted in the conflicts between the lagoon noble houses. However, from within the Ducal palace, the Council of Ten emerged  from the final decades of the Sixteenth century to enforce a new political course and flat-out affirm the obligation for peace between noble houses, as it assumed the exclusive domain to regulate any form of violence arising within the Venetian ruling class. La stanza di Andrea Trevisan discloses therefore how the elaborate and contested emotional level, especially if analysed in light of the interpersonal relations put forward by such case-study, is inestricably bound to the political and cultural context which gave life to it and made its peculiar imprint on the evidence that passed on its memory.

In the civil wars, the Roman aristocracy had lost a large part of its members and the control of the Republic. Nevertheless, it held on to its traditional claims to power, and it succeeded in enforcing them to the extent that after Caesar’s failure no potentate attempted to establish an open monarchy. Augustus’ greatest achievement was therefore the reconciliation of aristocratic norms with political reality: the establishment of a system that was de facto an autocracy, but apparently the continuation of the aristocratic regime that was only temporarily suspended. To make this order work a considerable amount of orchestration was required. While the ruler far exceeded all others in resources, he always had to pretend to be merely the first among equals. The aristocracy was thus made comfortable with its descent from ruling class to functional elite. Both sides benefited, but Augustus must have regarded this system, if only because of the highly complex social mechanisms required to maintain it, as only a transitional stage which was to give way as soon as possible to an undisguised monarchy which was much easier to manage. This aspiration is most clearly expressed in the Augustan moral legislation. At first Augustus demonstratively followed the traditional consensus on norms. Later, however, he attempted to enforce new values by means of an almost modern disciplinary action regarding morals – the laws on marriage and adultery. With this, Augustus became a norm-giver who set the behavioral patterns for the elites. He broke out of peer society. But the nobility, which was otherwise quite flexible, brought this legislation down through stubborn resistance. They could not and did not want to do without the traditional, apparently unchangeable values and their application to everyone without exception, including the princeps. They thus forced Augustus to accept the provisional arrangement as permanent. The aristocracy as a whole remained in theory capable of governing up to the High Empire, notwithstanding a reality in which only the individual aristocrat had the chance to rise to the position of princeps.

Plantear que en el mundo premoderno pecado y delito
eran nociones práctica y sustancialmente idénticas
puede ser un enunciado a la vez verdadero e improductivo.
El objetivo general de este libro radica en analizar la
configuración de las nociones de pecado y crimen a partir
de una perspectiva situacional que admita ir más allá de
la imagen de fusión que se obtiene en una primera aproximación
masiva al mundo del Medioevo. Esta perspectiva
nos permite captar las operaciones puestas en juego que
generan como producto dicha imagen general, al mismo
tiempo que habilita la percepción de eventuales subversiones
de las relaciones de prelación entre moral y derecho.
Tomando como punto de partida el corpus legislativo de
Alfonso el Sabio e incluyendo el horizonte del ius commune,
se analizan los procesos inversos de criminalización
del pecado y de diferenciación pecado/delito, a partir de
unos escenarios “excepcionales” en los que se movilizan
estas categorías. El uxoricidio legal, la criminalización del
suicidio y la implementación de castigos hereditarios conforman
los escenarios escogidos para un análisis que contempla,
en la medida de lo posible, la incidencia de la
antropología cristiana medieval de acuerdo con sus específicos
dispositivos de construcción (teológico, jurídico,
médico, etc.).

Perhaps the most interesting fact related to the Islamic punishment for adultery is that the punishment does not come from Muslim scripture. Instead, the jurists of Islam determined the punishment from a belief that the messenger of Islam prescribed stoning for adulterers and also applied the punishment. Another interesting aspect of the stories about the messenger of Islam is the connection he makes to the perceived Torah punishment. This brief article on "Adultery in Islam" for The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007-) appears here in the midst (cols 467-468) of a series of articles on adultery from a variety of angles.

In presenting any subject for discussion, it is essential that pertinent words be accurately defined. It has been said that if one is allowed to define or redefine words he will be able to "prove" anything. Thus, in the present discussion it is crucial that the term adultery is accurately defined, and that it is comprehensible. First, we must establish how we are going to arrive at a definition. Are we going to allow men who purport to be scholars to define adultery, or should be look to the scriptures? Not everyone agrees that using scripture, rather than scholars, to define a word is a preferable method. Those disagreeing with this approach will, no doubt, go with the "believe the scholars" philosophy when seeking for a definition of adultery. However, those who seek the truth soon realize that the influence tradition has had on scholars has tainted the view of some as they attempt to define the term. The Bible is not a dictionary, thus we should not expect it to define a word in the same manner as would a dictionary. The Bible is the word of God composed of various books and letters. In defining adultery, we must study and compare various passages of scripture. This is the only way to ensure an accurate, scriptural definition. As is often the case, a word may have more than one definition. Some, for example, would say that adultery is nothing more than "the act of sex a married person has with the spouse of another." To believe this one would have to be ignorant of or deliberately ignore a number of scriptures that contradict such a definition. The scriptures reveal that adultery is used to describe different actions committed by an individual or group. But the result is always an action contrary and detrimental to the covenant known as marriage. The narrow definition of the word that some espouse is merely effort to defend traditional error. In defining adultery, consider the following scriptures: Jeremiah 3:9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she

釋字第791號解釋做成後，法律人多認為婚外性行為之民事責任不受此解釋影響。惟近來有判決基於該號解釋否定了基於配偶權之損害賠償請求並引發關注。本文試圖釐清該號解釋是否如法律人一般所認知的，對民事責任體系沒有影響。

就此，本文考察該號解釋之論證理據，分析其對吾人論證相關侵權法條文時是否有所影響。本文認為「民事責任，如常運作」初步而言站不住腳；釋字第791號解釋雖主要針對刑事責任進行審查，但其對性自主權作為受侵害權利之認定，並選擇與之相應之審查標準的決定等，也對民事責任之論證設立障礙，甚而可能對配偶權產生否定之效。此外，該號解釋由《刑法》與《刑事訴訟法》之實踐結果較多係由女性承擔責任之情況，認有違《憲法》增修條文之促進性別平等之誡命。而相似實踐結果亦出現於民事責任體系中，故相同疑慮亦存乎其中。故本文認為，釋字第791號解釋確實對於婚外性之民事責任有所影響。

Tolstoy is considered to be a great realist writer for the 19 th century. Among his works, Anna Karenina occupies a central position in the portrayal of contemporary Russia. Tolstoy's biography was, examined in the first chapter of this thesis, permit us to regard the novel as a true representation of life. On these premises, the various marriage and adulterous portrayed in the novel are personal views. It presents some modern ideas and illuminated several aspects of Russian life depicted though not yet understood at the time of the novel's creation. Thus, attention is concentrated on the reality of marriage and adultery reflected in Anna Karenina without plying in any way that is what Tolstoy intended to stress himself.

Victorian literature not infrequently reveals the fragility of this coveted social order. For instance, in Braddon’s sensation novel, Aurora Floyd (1863), the ‘uncontaminated’ middle-class domestic haven is threatened by the very heroine, depicted as a mysterious femme fatale, and therefore the epitome of the ‘improper’ feminine. On the contrary, in Riddell’s City novel, The Race for Wealth (1866), the (il)legitimate capitalist activities of the male protagonist, Lawrence Barbour, are seemingly counterbalanced by Olivine Sondes, a paragon of  innocence and domestic virtue ; but no matter how hard she strives to protect from pollution “the very citadel of her purity”, she fails “ to shake the dust and dirt of London off”. Evidently, both Olivine and Aurora are meant to ‘cross the line’ at the root of the Victorian separation of ‘spheres’, calling into question the ‘naturalness’ of the domestic ideology, as well as the Victorian ideal of angelic femininity, and starting out a personal evolution in opposite directions. Given the above, in this paper I intend to outline the similarities, and the dissimilarities, of their roads to (im)pure womanhood.

RESUMEN: El adulterio se consideraba un delito muy grave en la sociedad romana y fue duramente castigado por el Derecho. La legislación augustea constituyó un antes y un después en la persecución de estas actuaciones que atentaban directamente contra la moral. En este sentido, las grandes perjudicadas fueron las mujeres que eran infieles a sus parejas. Ellas recibieron un trato desigual con respecto a los hombres y sufrieron una gran discriminación social. El presente trabajo pretende estudiar algunas referencias sobre el adulterio tanto en las fuentes jurídicas como en las literarias.

ABSTRACT: Adultery was a very serious crime in Roman society and it was severly punished by Law. The Augustan legislation pursued these crimes against morals. Women were the hardest hit by the laws. They received unequal treatment with respect to men and they suff ered a great social discrimination. This paper intends to study some references about adultery in legal and literary texts.

Christ brought a rebellion to human life according to religious and ethical orders. Christians should put these orders into practice in their daily life. Christian ethics emphasized that morality should unite with Christ and Church's sacred mysteries, otherwise it was not worthy. The central feature of Byzantine culture was Orthodox Christianity. Christian Ethics in the Byzantine Empire was not a systematic philosophical discipline but an occasional response to particular problems posed in everyday life or interpreting the Scripture. The Christian law and the Church commandments were set within the context of devotion to God but were deontological standards defining what this morality was. The highest ethical duty of a Christian was the same as the greatest commandment: love God and love your neighbor. In this paper, we are going to search for vicious and good/virtuous relationships in the teachings of the Church Fathers based on the social structure and gender relations in the Byzantine state and mainly on spouses' relations. Which was the attitude of the Church Fathers to the specific topic in the Byzantine era? Did they dare to criticize vicious actions among people like adultery, homosexuality, prostitution, and concubinage? Which was their influence on the laws of the Byzantine Empire about the status of marriage? How did they present the virtuous relations as religious attitudes against vicious actions which help the social life of married and unmarried Christians
and their sexual life?

Proponents of equality before the law have recently sought to eradicate partial defences in homicide cases premised on a wife’s adultery, an effort given greater resonance by concerns that lighter sentences contribute to the high numbers of women killed by intimate male partners. Participants in these discussions sometimes imagine that the adultery defense has a centuries long history, an assumption shared by some historians. This article demonstrates that in English law, judges only came to accept adultery as a provocation sufficient to mitigate a charge of murder to manslaughter in the late 1600s. Even then, adultery served to moderate the punishment for a man who killed his wife’s sexual partner, not the wife. That a woman’s infidelity partially excused her killing only entered into legal practice in the nineteenth century, this article suggests. While the article’s primary purpose is to correct a pervasive misconception of the timelessness and tenacity of notions that a husband might kill his unfaithful wife with some degree of impunity, it also suggests that altered perceptions of female sexuality, male honor, and the purposes of marriage, as well as shifting attitudes to crime and punishment, drove the emergence of this “long tradition” in the nineteenth century.

What counts, or should count, as prostitution? In the criminal law today, prostitution is understood to involve the provision of sexual services in exchange for money or other benefits. But what exactly is a "sexual service"? And what exactly is the nature of the required "exchange"? The key to answering these questions is to recognize that how we choose to define prostitution will inevitably depend on why we believe one or more aspects of prostitution are wrong or harmful, or should be criminalized or otherwise deterred, in the first place. These judgments, in turn, will often depend on an assessment of the contested empirical evidence on which they rest. This article describes a variety of real-world contexts in which the "what counts as prostitution" question has arisen, surveys a range of leading rationales for deterring prostitution, and demonstrates how the answer to the definition question depends on the answer to the normative question. The article concludes with some preliminary thoughts on how analogous questions about what should count as sexual conduct arise in the context of consensual offenses such as adultery and incest, as well as non-consensual offenses such as sexual assault.

L’adulterio è oggi, in Italia e in gran parte del mondo civilizzato, condotta non penalmente rilevante; la depenalizzazione è stata per lungo tempo un’aspirazione: se questa è divenuta una realtà diffusa, il diritto tuttavia continua ad occuparsene sul versante civilistico. Nelle età in cui era invece un’azione sanzionata dal diritto canonico-civile, sfera criminale compresa, la morale e la religione giocarono, in una partita di reciproca integrazione, un ruolo di primo piano. Nel contributo si studia in particolare l’adulterio nel regime trasmesso attraverso i secoli XIV-XVI dalle Summae confessorum  dell’area italiana.

This paper is the translation of a reworked excerpt from my book Jeux de Masques dans l'élégie latine, Peeters, 1998, pp. 193-96, where I aim to demonstrate that the speakers of Ovid's Am. 1.4 and 2.5 identify respectively with Augustus and Maecenas.

The idea that a wife’s marital unfaithfulness brought disgrace upon her husband is not clearly attested in the Hebrew Bible. The passages dealing with adultery are more interested in the pollution that results from it, rather than in the honour of the cheated husband. Such pollution is the consequence of actions that undermine the order of the world and bring disaster upon the community.  It is therefore unwise to read the ‘Mediterranean notion’ of shame and honour into biblical texts. This also applies to Moon’s recent proposal about ‘Hosea’s marriages’. His idea that Israel’s adultery in Hosea chs. 1-3 undermines the honour of Yahweh who is thereby portrayed as willingly embracing humiliation cannot stand under closer scrutiny.

What are the sex crimes dealt with in the laws of the Hebrew Bible, and does the approach taken by these laws differ from that found in ancient Near Eastern societies other than Israel and Judah? These are the questions that this article seeks to address. The conclusion will be that, in the pentateuchal law collections, adultery is the one sexual violation considered to be a crime, as opposed to being only a sin against the god Yahweh, and that the main treatment of the topic in Deuteronomy does not differ dramatically from that of the cuneiform law collections.

"The quite increasing number of marital separation and the issue of poor well-being of individuals involved was the main reason of doing this paper. The focus is to know the relation between marital commitment (MC) and subjective well-being (SWB) of husbands and wives in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija. It will investigate the relationship of the husbands and wives’ socio-demographic characteristics and their SWB, MC and perceived marital commitment (PMC).  It was also intended to know  the differences of husbands and wives in terms of MC, PMC and four components of SWB.
By means of quantitative method of research, the study found that husbands and wives have high level of SWB (which is exemplified by high levels of positive affect, marital satisfaction, family satisfaction and life satisfaction and low level of negative affect), high level of MC as well as PMC. Marital commitment, perceived marital commitment and some components of SWB were also found to be significant correlates of the respondents' age, monthly income, length of marriage and highest educational attainment. Also, MC and PMC were also found to have a significant relationship with all components of SWB. Moreover, gender differences on the level of SWB, MC and PMC were not found significant.
Overall, the study suggests that to be able to have a satisfying relationship, couples should exert effort on their relationship and preserve the bond between them that will lead to good well-being.
"

The sexual adventures of television characters. Dating websites for married women. News reports on raids of polygamous communities. Reality shows about polyamorists. It seems that non- monogamy is everywhere: in popular culture, in the news, and before the courts.

In Fraught Intimacies, Nathan Rambukkana delves into North American society’s fixation with monogamy and its attendant fascination with non-monogamy. Drawing on media coverage, popular culture, and recent court cases, he examines how polygamy, adultery, and polyamory are represented in the public sphere and the effect this in having on intimate relationships and aspects of contemporary Western society.
As this book demonstrates, although monogamy is considered and presented as the norm in Western society, many kinds of sexual and romantic relationships exist within its borders. Rambukkana’s intricate analysis reveals how some forms of non-monogamy are tacitly accepted, even glamourized, while others are vilified and reviled. By questioning what this says how about intimacy, power and privilege, this book offers an innovative framework for understanding the place of non-monogamy in Western society, particularly in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, and citizenship status.

Timely and controversial, this book makes a stimulating and sophisticated argument for why we need to reconsider how we talk – and think – about non-monogamy.

Alberico Gentili (San Ginesio 1552 – Londra 1608). Giurista di fama, esule in Inghilterra nel 1580 per motivi religiosi e regius professor di civil law a Oxford dal 1587, il Gentili è noto alla letteratura specialistica soprattutto per aver pubblicato, in particolare, i De iuris interpretibus Dialogi sex (1582), e i De iure belli libri tres (1598): due opere che hanno spesso indotto gli studiosi a considerarlo, rispettivamente, come uno strenuo difensore del “mos italicus iura docendi” e uno dei padri fondatori del diritto internazionale moderno.

Le carte manoscritte del giurista italiano sono conservate presso la Bodleian Library di Oxford: carte che fino ad oggi risultano solo molto parzialmente esplorate. Nel fondo D’Orville 610, ff. 59r-69v, è conservato l’autografo, sicuramente risalente all’ultimo decennio del ‘500, che oggi viene criticamente ed integralmente edito nelle ultime pagine del volume (Appendice, pp. 169-206).

Il testo è preceduto da un’ampia illustrazione dell’opera (pp. 1-167). Si tratta di un vero e proprio Commentario nel quale il giurista illustra il Libro IX titolo IX del Codice giustinianeo: adulterio, stupro (inteso come relazione con una “virgo” o una “vidua”), lenocinio, disparità di trattamento fra coniugi in relazione ai reati sopra indicati, status processuale della donna, pene da irrogare agli adulteri, sono i temi che il giurista affronta alla luce del dettato della legislazione romano-giustinianea, e della letteratura che per secoli se n’è occupata avendo particolare riguardo, non solo alla dottrina civilistica, ma anche alla canonistica, al pensiero dei Padri della Chiesa ed ai maggiori umanisti del XVI secolo fra i quali il Cuiacio che il Gentili aveva aspramente criticato nei Dialogi del 1582.

Senza rinnegare quanto aveva teorizzato all’inizio degli anni Ottanta del XVI secolo, nel prosieguo della sua attività scientifica il giurista di San Ginesio ricongiunge i frutti copiosi delle Scuole dei Glossatori e dei Commentatori, con le nuove esigenze e le indiscutibili acquisizioni dottrinali dovute ai grandi giuristi umanisti, nel tentativo di ricercare un nuovo percorso tra la conservazione del grande patrimonio dottrinale dell’età intermedia e le esigenze di rinnovamento proprie del XVI secolo. È una novità che deve fa riflettere sull’opportunità di dover necessariamente collocare Alberico Gentili in una delle sue scuole (bartolisti e umanisti) che caratterizzarono un’epoca importante della storia giuridica europea.

Human society was never fully monogamous. In fact, before civilization polygamy was socially acceptable. However, ascent of civilization brought the rule of monogamy. Monogamy is considered for the growth of institution of marriage. Marriage is a basis of family. Family functions as bonding tie to maintain civilization. Without civilization, human society cannot survive & evolve further. With this background, argument proceeds to the dilemma of adopting adultery or not. If no, then reasons with benefits are argued scientifically, biologically, psycho-socially. Methods to avoid adultery are discussed. Articles on adultery or infidelity or extramarital sex are published by many, but probably this is a first editorial written by any practicing psychiatrist-cum-psychotherapist. That is why this article becomes relevant to practice by any ordinary individual or by any expert in the field of medical science & psychology.

TÍTULO : ¿ Qué sabemos del hijo de la monja Sor María Gertrudis de la Cruz Hore
(1742-1801) y de su esposo, Esteban Fleming ?
PALABRAS CLAVES : monja casada, madre, marido, Cádiz, siglo XVIII.
RESUMEN : Por una parte, este artículo se propone recopilar las huellas archivísticas
localizadas en Cádiz, Madrid y Santander en relación con el hijo de María Gertrudis
Hore y Ley antes de que profesase como religiosa de coro en el convento de Santa María de Cádiz. Por otra parte, ofrece hipótesis sobre el paradero de Esteban Fleming, su marido, tras darle su licencia para que ingresara en la clausura.

TITLE : « What do we know about Sor María Gertrudis de la Cruz Hore (1742-1801)
sun’s and her husband, Esteban Fleming ? »
KEY WORDS : nuns married, mother, husband, Cadiz, 18th century.
ABSTRACT : On the one hand, the essay collects archivistics prints in relation with María Gertrudis Hore y Ley sun’s in Cadiz, Madrid and Santander before she profess in Santa María convent’s. On the other hand, this essay offer some hypothesis about Esteban Fleming destination’s, her husband, after he has signed the entery licence’s
wife to be a nun.