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adultery, sexual relations by a married person with someone other than the spouse. Prohibitions or taboos against adultery, written or customary, constitute part of the marriage code of virtually every society. Indeed, adultery seems to be as universal, and in some instances as common, as marriage.
The Code of Hammurabi (18th century BC) in Babylonia provided a punishment of death by drowning for adultery. In ancient Greece and in Roman law, the offending female spouse could be killed, but men were not severely punished. The Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions are unequivocal in their condemnation of adultery. The culpability of men as well as women is more explicitly expressed in the New Testament and the Talmud than in the Old Testament or the Qur’an. The attitude toward adultery within different cultures varies widely. Whereas the traditional Senufo (Senoufo) and Bambara of West Africa, for instance, still tacitly condone the honour crime of killing the adulterous female spouse and her companion, among the Kaka in Cameroon, a man may have sexual relations with the wives of certain relatives with impunity. Wife lending is part of Eskimo hospitality.
Nomncestuous adultery is permitted by many South Sea island tribes, and among certain Pueblo Indian societies adultery is so common that it is tolerated if the act is kept secret.
Under ancient Hindu law, marriage was an indissoluble sacrament, and not even a wife’s adultery unattended by degradation could sever the legal tie and dissolve the marriage act. In the modem Hindu code, divorce will be granted to either offended party, but not for occasional violations; the spouse must actually be living in adultery with another.
In western Europe and North America, adultery is a ground for divorce. The diffusion of this principle, as well as Western notions of egalitarianism and modem expectations of mutual emotional support in marriage, has resulted in unprecedented pressure for equal marital rights for women in traditional African and Southeast Asian societies.
In Poland and other eastern European countries, adultery does not in itself constitute grounds for divorce; both partners must testify, under the principle of “general breakdown,” that the offense results in the decline of those feelings of which marital unity is composed.
