Recap: Legal penalties for adultery

Legal penalties for adultery

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 of punishment for adultery is stoning to death.

In the original Napoleonic Code, a man could ask to be divorced from his wife if she committed adultery, but the philandery of the husband was not a sufficient motive for divorce unless he had kept his concubine in the family home.

In some jurisdictions, including Korea and Taiwan, adultery is illegal. In the United States, laws vary from state to state. For example, in Pennsylvania, adultery is technically punishable by 2 years of imprisonment or 18 months of treatment for insanity (for history, see Hamowy)(criminal statute repealed 1972), while in Michigan the Court of Appeals, the state's second-highest court, ruled that a little-known provision of state criminal law means that adultery carries a potential life sentence. In Maryland, adultery is punishable by a fine of ten dollars. That being said, such statutes are typically considered blue laws and are rarely, if ever, enforced. In the U.S. Military, adultery is a court-martialable offense only if it was "to the prejudice of good order and discipline" or "of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces" . This law has been applied to cases where both partners were members of the military, particularly where one was in command of the other, or one partner and the other's spouse. The enforceability of criminal sanctions for adultery is questionable in light of Supreme Court decisions since 1965 relating to privacy and sexual intimacy, and particularly in light of Lawrence v. Texas, which protected the right of privacy for consenting adults.

In Canadian law, adultery is defined under the Divorce Act. http://malaysia.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070328005718AAajUAX

马来西亚也属于Family Law，没有刑事责任。通奸者别以为这么轻松，还有其他条文可以使用。最常发生的是，通奸分分钟会变强奸。

通奸者，小心通奸吧。记得不要去同样的酒店，以及同样的房间。也记得口交触犯法律。

[Modified by: 旁观者 on 04 一月 2008 09:34:50 ]