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Adultery laws are the laws in various countries that deal with extramarital sex.Historically, many cultures considered adultery a very serious crime, some subject to severe punishment, especially in the case of extramarital sex involving a married woman and a man other than her husband, with penalties including capital punishment, mutilation, or torture. [1]
In criminal law, adultery was a criminal offence in many countries in the past, and is still a crime in some countries today. In family law, adultery may be a ground for divorce, [15] with the legal definition of adultery being "physical contact with an alien and unlawful organ", [16] while in some countries today, adultery is not in itself ...
However, notorious and open lewdness, when carried to the extent of exciting public scandal, continued to be an indictable offence at common law, however fornication in a private sense was not illegal. [25] Prior to the passing of the Marriage Act 1753, laws against bastard children became more strict during the 1730s and 1740s. [26]
The most debated issue is over the exception to the ban on divorce, which the KJV translates as "saving for the cause of fornication." The Koine Greek word in the exception is πορνείας /porneia, this has variously been translated to specifically mean adultery, to mean any form of marital immorality, or to a narrow definition of marriages already invalid by law.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. It is forbidden for a man to have sexual relations with a married woman not his wife. (Leviticus 18:20, 20:10) According to Jeffrey H. Tigay in Encyclopedia Judaica (2007), "ADULTERY (Heb. נִאוּף, ni'uf; sometimes, loosely, זְנוּת, zenut; זְנוּנִים, zenunim; lit. "fornication, whoredom ...
The last adultery charge in New York appears to have been filed in 2010 against a woman who was caught engaging in a sex act in a public park, but it was later dropped as part of a plea deal.
The practice primarily focuses on polygyny (one man having more than one wife) and not polyandry (one woman having more than one husband), as polyandry is implied to be unlawful by the Hebrew Bible's laws of adultery (e.g., Deuteronomy 22:22) and in the New Testament (e.g., Romans 7:3).
Cheating is one of the most common reasons for divorce in the United States.