Adultery
Adultery is generally defined as consensual sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than their lawful spouse. There is usually an implicit or explicit agreement between spouses to not have sex outside the marriage. If there is such an agreement it is also called infidelity or unfaithfulness. By extension these concepts may apply for other sexual activities outside the marriage. The sexual partner of a person committing adultery is often referred to in legal documents (especially divorce proceedings) as a co-respondent, while the person whose spouse has been unfaithful is often labeled a cuckold; originally, the latter term was applied only to males, but in more recent times women as well as men have been so characterized.When both spouses in a marriage agree that it is acceptable to have sexual relationships with other people, it is an open marriage and the resulting sexual relationships are not considered adultery, at least from a non-legal standpoint. The law in some areas may not recognize open-marriage agreements and thus such extramarital sex may be considered adultery regardless. Sometimes only one party in an open marriage will opt to have other sexual relationships, in which case the one who does not do so is referred to as a wittol.
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Penalties for adultery
In the U.S. Military, adultery is a chargeable offense.
Historically adultery has been subject to severe sanctions including the death penalty and has been grounds for divorce under fault-based divorce laws. In some places the method for punishing adultery was traditionally stoning to death.
In many jurisdictions, adultery is still illegal. Enforcement of laws against adultery is often uneven. In the United States, while a number of states still retain adultery laws on the books, they are rarely enforced, if ever. In places where adultery laws are still commonly enforced, women are often punished more harshly than men, in some cases being considered guilty of adultery even when they did not consent to sex. In the original Napoleonic Code, a man could ask to be divorced from his wife if she committed adultery, but the adultery of the husband was not a sufficient motive unless he had kept his concubine in the family home.
Many Muslim nations practicing Sharia, strict Islamic law, retain the death penalty for adultery.
See also
External links