Adultery

From Wikigender.org

Adultery refers to the act of extramarital sexual relations involving at least one married person and another person. The

Cranach, 'Christ and the woman taken in adultery'. Adultery is a sin in Christianity.

word adultery originates from the Latin verb for "to alter, corrupt": adulterare .

Historically, adultery has been considered to be a serious offense by many cultures. In some countries, adultery is a crime. However, even in jurisdictions where adultery is not itself a criminal offense, it may still have legal consequences, particularly in divorce cases.

Adultery in Religion

Christianity: Adultery is a sin in Christianity, based on the 6th Commandment and several other New Testament proscriptions.
Judaism: Though the Torah prescribes the death penalty by stoning for adultery, the legal procedural requirements were very exacting and required the testimony of two witnesses of good character for conviction. At the civil level, however, Jewish law (halakha) forbids a man to continue living with an adulterous wife, and he is obliged to divorce her. Also, an adulteress is not permitted to marry the adulterer, but, to avoid any doubt as to her status as being free to marry another or that of her children, he must give her a divorce as if they were married.
Islam: Adultery is a violation of the marital contract and one of the major sins and is condemned by God in the Qur'an.Though strict Muslim law prescribes severe punishments for extramarital sex, by both men and women, to obtain conviction, the act of sexual penetration must be attested by at least four male Muslim witnesses of good character, with the accused having a right to testify and their testimony given the most weight in the eyes of the judge(s). Also, punishments are reserved to the legal authorities and false accusations are to be punished severely. It has been said that these legal procedural requirements were instituted to make it impossible to obtain conviction. The punishment of stoning is in the Hadith. The punishment for adultery given in the Quran is one hundred lashes and restriction of future marriage to another adulterer or the partner in the act.

Adultery and the Law

Adultery is not a crime in most countries of the European Union. Some states in the United States list adultery as a crime but it is rarely prosecuted. In Korea and Taiwan, adultery continues to be a crime.

In the Philippines, adultery (defined as consensual sexual intercourse between a married woman and a man who is not her husband) and a related crime, concubinage (a man cohabiting with a woman who is not his wife), are considered crimes under the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines.

In Pakistan, adultery is a crime under the Hudood Ordinance. The Ordinance sets a maximum penalty of death, although only imprisonment and corporal punishment have ever actually been imposed.The Ordinance has been particularly controversial because it requires a woman making an accusation of rape to provide extremely strong evidence to avoid being charged with adultery herself. A conviction of a man for rape is only possible with evidence from no less than four witnesses.

In Indian law, adultery is defined as sex between a man and a woman without the consent of the woman's husband. The man is prosecutable and can be sentenced for up to 5 years (even if he himself was unmarried) whereas the married woman can not be jailed. Men have called the law gender discrimination in that women cannot be prosecuted for adultery and the National Commission of Women has criticized the British era law of being anti-feminist as it treats women as the property of their husbands and has consequentially recommended deletion of the law or reducing it to a civil offense.

References

Maimonidies, Book of the Commandments, Prohibition 392 and the note at the end of Prohibition 347, Hebrew translation and notes by Rabbi Joseph Kapach, Massad Harav Kook, Jerusalem 1971

Sources

From Dictionary.com definition of adultery. http://dictionary.reference.com
From Etymology Dictionary [1]
"Ten Commandments". Lds.org. http://lds.org/
Syed Shahabuddin. "Should the Islamic punishment of Adultery be reconsidered?" August 8, 2009. http://www.guidedones.com
Rapps, Dennis; Weinberg, Lewin (December 1999). "Examining Halcha, Jewish issues and secular law". Jewish Law:Legal briefs. Ira Kasdan. http://www.jlaw.com/Briefs/capital2.html. Retrieved 2009-10-09.