Adultery. [1] I will not here raise the question of whether adultery is a crime, or if it disfigures society. There is no one who does not feel in his conscience that this is not a question worth posing, unless he pretends to be overwhelmed by arguments that are nothing but the subtleties of self-interest. But another question very worthy of being discussed, and whose solution is just as important as the preceding one, would be to determine which of these two does the most damage to society, he who dishonors the wife of another, or he who sees a single woman, and who avoids ensuring the security of her children by way of a regular marriage.

We judge, with reason, and in agreement with the feelings of all peoples, that adultery is, after homicide, the most punishable of all crimes, because it is the most cruel of all thefts, and an outrage capable of inciting murders and the most deplorable excesses.

The other form of illegitimate union does not commonly give rise to the same outrage as adultery. The wounds it inflicts on society are not as apparent: but they are no less real, and although less enormous in degree, they are perhaps greater in their consequences.

Adultery , in truth, is the union of two hearts corrupted, full of injustice, which should be objects of horror to each other, because two thieves esteem each other all the less since they know each other better. Adultery can harm profoundly the children that result from it, because they cannot expect either the effects of maternal tenderness from a mother who only sees in them causes for concern or reproaches for infidelity; nor any vigilance over their morals, on the part of a mother who no longer has any, and who has lost the taste for innocence. But although there are here grave disorders, as long as the evil is secret, society apparently suffers little: the children are fed, and even receive an honest education. It is not the same in a passing union of people without commitment.

The pleasures that God willed attached to the conjugal union tend to make the human race grow; and this result follows from the Providential institution, when these pleasures are subject to law: but the ruin of fertility and the opprobrium of society are the infallible results of irregular unions.

First of all, there is the ruin of fertility: women who do not know their duty little love the position of mother, but find themselves wide open to it; or if they find themselves such, they dread nothing as much as the fruits of their intercourse. One can only view with vexation the arrival of these unfortunate children; it seems that they have no right to be here, and their anticipated birth is greeted with murderous remedies; or they are killed after they have seen the day, or they are exposed after being delivered. This mass of children, scattered to chance, forms a vile population without education, goods, or profession. The extreme freedom in which they have always lived leaves them inevitably without principles, without rules, and without restraint. Often pique and rage seize them, and in order to avenge the state of abandonment in which they find themselves, they wreak the most grievous excesses.

The least damage that these illegitimate loves can cause is to cover the earth with unfortunate citizens who perish without the ability to unite, and who cause only ill to this society, where they are only seen with contempt.

Nothing is therefore more contrary to the growth and serenity of society than the doctrine and infamous celibacy of these false Philosophers that one hears everywhere and who speak to us only of the good of society, while they are ruining its true foundations. Furthermore, nothing is as healthy for a state as the doctrine and zeal of the Church, since it only honors celibacy in the intention of seeing those who embrace it become more perfect, and more useful to others; and since it tries to inculcate in both rich and poor the dignity of marriage in order to anchor everyone in a holy and honorable society; because in the end it is the Church which works with concern to recover, nourish, and instruct those children that an entirely bestial philosophy has abandoned. [2]

The ancient Romans had no formal law against adultery ; the accusation and the penalty were arbitrary. The Emperor Augustus was the first who made one, and had the unhappiness of seeing it executed on the person of his own child: this was the Julia law, which carried the death penalty against the guilty: although by virtue of this law, the accusation of the crime of adultery was public and open to everyone, nevertheless it is certain that adultery has always been considered more a domestic and private crime than a public crime; such that it is rarely permitted for outsiders to pursue vengeance, particularly if the marriage was peaceful, and the husband did not complain himself.

In addition, several subsequent Emperors abrogated the law that permitted outsiders to make the accusation of adultery ; because this accusation could not be made without the intent of creating division between husband and wife, without putting the condition of the children into uncertainty, and without bringing down on the husband the contempt and mockery; because since the husband is the principal party interested in examining the actions of his wife, it is thought that he will examine them with more circumspection than anyone; such that when he said not a word, no one has the right to speak. See Accusation.

This is why the law in certain cases has established the husband as judge and executioner of his own case; and he is permitted to seek vengeance himself for the injury that was done, in surprising in the act the two guilty parties who have ravished his honor. It is true that whether the husband makes a public business of the debauchery of his wife, or witnesses her disorder and hides it, he suffers from it; thus adultery becomes a public crime; and the Julia law pronounced penalties against the husband as well as against the wife.

Currently, in the majority of European countries, adultery is not considered a public crime; only the husband can accuse his wife; the prosecution itself cannot do so, unless there has been a huge scandal.

Furthermore, although the husband who violates conjugal trust is guilty as well as the woman, it is not permitted for her to accuse him, nor to pursue him because of this crime. See Husband, etc.

Socrates reports that under the Emperor Theodosius in the year 380, a wife convicted of adultery was delivered, for punishment, to the brutality of anyone who wanted to insult her.

Lycurgus punished a man convicted of adultery as a parricide; the Locrians put out his eyes; and most oriental peoples punish this crime very severely.

The ancient Saxons burned adulterous women; and on these ashes they elevated a scaffold where they hanged her accomplice. In England King Edmund punished adultery as he did murder: but Canut ordained that the punishment for the man should be banishment and that of the woman to have her nose and ears cut off.

In Spain, one punished the culprit by cutting off the parts which were the instrument of the crime.

In Poland, before Christianity was established there, they punished adultery and fornication in a singular fashion. They led the criminal into the public square; there they attached with a small hook by his testicles, leaving him a razor within his reach, such that it was necessarily to mutilate himself in order to free himself; unless he preferred to perish in that condition.

Civil Law, reformed by Justinian, who under the remonstrance of his wife Theodora moderated the rigor of the Julia law, decreed that the wife was whipped and shut away in a convent for two years: and so, during this period, if the husband did not resolve to take her again, they cut her hair and kept her there for the rest of her life. That is what is called authentic , because the law that contained these provisions was authentic or novel. See Authentic and Authenticate.

The laws concerning adultery are at present much mitigated. The only punishment that is inflicted on the woman convicted of adultery is to deprive her of her dowry and of all her matrimonial rights, and to relegate her to a monastery. She is no longer whipped in fear that if the husband found himself disposed to take her back, this public affront would deter him.

Nevertheless heirs will not succeed in in bringing a suit of adultery against a widow, with the result of depriving her of her matrimonial privileges. They may only ask whether she had fallen if the husband had intended the action: but it is permitted for them to bring proof of her immodesty during the year of mourning, with a result of depriving her of her dowry. See Mourning.

The wife condemned for adultery does not cease, as a result, to be under the power of the husband.

There was a time when the Lacedemonians, far from punishing adultery , permitted it, or at least tolerated it, as we are told by Plutarch.

Adultery renders marriage between the guilty parties illicit, and forms what the theologians call an impedimentum criminis.

The Greeks and some other Eastern Christians are of the sentiment that adultery breaks the tie of marriage; such that the husband can, without other formalities, marry another woman. But the Council of Trent, session XXIV. Can. 7. condemns this sentiment and anathematizes any who support it.

In England, if a married woman abandons her husband to live with an adulterer, she loses her dowry, and cannot require her husband to give her any other income:

Some astronomers call eclipses of the sun and the moon adultery , because they come in an unusual manner, and they are found to be irregular; such are the horizontal eclipses: because although the sun and the moon are at the time diametrically opposed, they give the appearance of being together above the horizon. This word is no longer in common usage. See eclipse, refraction, etc.

Notes

1. [The first section of this article is by Yvon.]

2. [Here ends the section by Yvon; the following section is by Toussaint.]

3. [Here ends the section by Toussaint. The final paragraph of the article is by Diderot.]