3 ms·

Who is the victim in adultery? The only injury is to some nebulous honor of the husband or wife. The actual problem is something the three people involved can s

by pavlov 3y ago

Who is the victim in adultery? The only injury is to some nebulous honor of the husband or wife. The actual problem is something the three people involved can sort out between themselves like grown-ups. No legal protections are needed. We generally don’t have honor-based injuries in Western legal systems nowadays. Blasphemy, lèse-majesté, offenses against nobility privileges — these used to be serious crimes but not anymore. Penalizing adultery is part of that same outdated value system.

lelanthran 3y ago
> Who is the victim in adultery? Children. If there aren't any children, then sure, call it victimless. But if there are children, an adulterer is directly harming them[1]. TBH, we often forget about children when dealing in family law. Another example that comes to mind is paternity fraud, where the argument is that there's no need to find the real father if the alleged father can be violently forced into supporting the child. Everyone forgets that the child who is mislead about their father in that situation is the biggest victim. All the systems focus on the emotional well-being of the mother at the cost of the child's rights. [1] Because, at this point in time, every single piece of evidence we have ever seen supports the assertion that children living through their parents divorce have worse outcomes.
- pavlov 3y ago
  I'm married with children. If my wife sleeps around and doesn't tell me (or the children), who was hurt? As far as I can tell, no one. Yet laws prohibiting adultery would punish her for this activity with the assumption that I'm the victim even though I suffered no injury.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > I'm married with children. If my wife sleeps around and doesn't tell me (or the children), who was hurt? As far as I can tell, no one. > Yet laws prohibiting adultery would punish her for this activity with the assumption that I'm the victim even though I suffered no injury. I'm not following your argument. If your wife sleeps around and doesn't get caught, how do the laws against this punish her? If she does get caught then your children are harmed, in which case the laws will punish her. I don't see how it is possible that she doesn't get caught and still gets punished.
    - pavlov 3y ago
      Laws against adultery create an incentive to catch people who otherwise bothered no one. Same way that laws against homosexual behavior used to lead to police regularly raiding gay bars, etc. The famous NYC Stonewall riot that launched the gay pride movement happened because patrons at the Stonewall bar got fed up with police harassment. People are free to believe that gay bars, adultery, eating pork, etc. are immoral behavior. But there’s no justification for criminalization.
      - lelanthran 3y ago
        We're talking about adultery here; unless there's an adultery bar where married people can hook up, there's nothing analagous to gay bars. > People are free to believe that gay bars, adultery, eating pork, etc. are immoral behavior. But there’s no justification for criminalization. Once again, I point out that the consequences of adultery are objective harm on children. That was my entire point - that adultery is not a victimless crime. Now look, I'm not making a judgement call on whether infidelity is immoral or not, I'm just pointing out that it frequently does result in measurable harm to any children involved. In fact, in my first post I literally said that if there's no children, then I don't see a problem. You are presenting exceedingly unlikely scenarios[1] in support of ... what, exactly? That any children involved aren't harmed by adultery? After all, whether it is moral or not is irrelevant to the argument, so I see no point in discussing that aspect. [1] For example, an adulter being punished by law while simultaneously managing to keep their family in the dark. Granted, it can happen, but that's really not likely at all.
        bartonfink 3y ago
        pavlov wants some strange and wants you to be okay with that
        pavlov 3y ago
        In countries like Saudi Arabia, there are religious police who patrol public spaces looking for, among other things, married people who interact with members of the opposite sex. It’s not some kind of outlandish example, this happens today. A woman hanging out with a male co-worker could get charged with adultery even though her family wasn’t injured in any way. And the publicity of the charge is clearly worse for the family’s children than whatever transpired between the married woman and the other man. (The penalty for adultery is stoning to death. If mom is publicly murdered in that way, you probably agree it’s more traumatic to the children than a divorce?)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by pavlov 3y ago

lelanthran 3y ago

> Who is the victim in adultery? Children. If there aren't any children, then sure, call it victimless. But if there are children, an adulterer is directly harming them[1]. TBH, we often forget about children when dealing in family law. Another example that comes to mind is paternity fraud, where the argument is that there's no need to find the real father if the alleged father can be violently forced into supporting the child. Everyone forgets that the child who is mislead about their father in that situation is the biggest victim. All the systems focus on the emotional well-being of the mother at the cost of the child's rights. [1] Because, at this point in time, every single piece of evidence we have ever seen supports the assertion that children living through their parents divorce have worse outcomes.

pavlov 3y ago
I'm married with children. If my wife sleeps around and doesn't tell me (or the children), who was hurt? As far as I can tell, no one. Yet laws prohibiting adultery would punish her for this activity with the assumption that I'm the victim even though I suffered no injury.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > I'm married with children. If my wife sleeps around and doesn't tell me (or the children), who was hurt? As far as I can tell, no one. > Yet laws prohibiting adultery would punish her for this activity with the assumption that I'm the victim even though I suffered no injury. I'm not following your argument. If your wife sleeps around and doesn't get caught, how do the laws against this punish her? If she does get caught then your children are harmed, in which case the laws will punish her. I don't see how it is possible that she doesn't get caught and still gets punished.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    Laws against adultery create an incentive to catch people who otherwise bothered no one. Same way that laws against homosexual behavior used to lead to police regularly raiding gay bars, etc. The famous NYC Stonewall riot that launched the gay pride movement happened because patrons at the Stonewall bar got fed up with police harassment. People are free to believe that gay bars, adultery, eating pork, etc. are immoral behavior. But there’s no justification for criminalization.
    - lelanthran 3y ago
      We're talking about adultery here; unless there's an adultery bar where married people can hook up, there's nothing analagous to gay bars. > People are free to believe that gay bars, adultery, eating pork, etc. are immoral behavior. But there’s no justification for criminalization. Once again, I point out that the consequences of adultery are objective harm on children. That was my entire point - that adultery is not a victimless crime. Now look, I'm not making a judgement call on whether infidelity is immoral or not, I'm just pointing out that it frequently does result in measurable harm to any children involved. In fact, in my first post I literally said that if there's no children, then I don't see a problem. You are presenting exceedingly unlikely scenarios[1] in support of ... what, exactly? That any children involved aren't harmed by adultery? After all, whether it is moral or not is irrelevant to the argument, so I see no point in discussing that aspect. [1] For example, an adulter being punished by law while simultaneously managing to keep their family in the dark. Granted, it can happen, but that's really not likely at all.
      - bartonfink 3y ago
        pavlov wants some strange and wants you to be okay with that
      - pavlov 3y ago
        In countries like Saudi Arabia, there are religious police who patrol public spaces looking for, among other things, married people who interact with members of the opposite sex. It’s not some kind of outlandish example, this happens today. A woman hanging out with a male co-worker could get charged with adultery even though her family wasn’t injured in any way. And the publicity of the charge is clearly worse for the family’s children than whatever transpired between the married woman and the other man. (The penalty for adultery is stoning to death. If mom is publicly murdered in that way, you probably agree it’s more traumatic to the children than a divorce?)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]