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Adultery - Dictionary Definition and Overview |
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Adultery : (noun)
1: extramarital sex that willfully and maliciously interferes
with marriage relations; "adultery is often cited as
grounds for divorce" [syn: criminal conversation, fornication]
Based on WordNet 2.0
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Adultery : \A*dul"ter*y\, n.; pl. Adulteries. [L. adulterium.
See Advoutry.]
1. The unfaithfulness of a married person to the marriage
bed; sexual intercourse by a married man with another than
his wife, or voluntary sexual intercourse by a married
woman with another than her husband.
Based on Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
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ADULTERY, criminal law. Based on ad and alter, another person; a criminal
conversation, between a man married to another woman, and a woman married to
another man, or a married and unmarried person. The married person is guilty
of adultery, the unmarried of fornication. (q.v.) 1 Yeates, 6; 2 Dall. 124;
but see 2 Blackf. 318.
2. The elements of this crime are, 1st, that there shall be an unlawful
carnal connexion; 2dly, that the guilty party shall at the time be married;
3dly, that he or she shall willingly commit the offence; for a woman who has
been ravished against her will is not guilty of adultery. Domat, Supp. du
Droit Public, liv. 3, t. 10, n. 13.
3. The punishment of adultery, in the United States, generally, is fine
and imprisonment.
4. In England it is left to the feeble hands of the ecclesiastical
courts to punish this offence.
5.Adultery : in one of the married persons is good cause for obtaining a
divorce by the innocent partner. See 1 Pick. 136; 8 Pick. 433; 9 Mass. 492:
14 Pick. 518; 7 Greenl. 57; 8 Greenl. 75; 7 Conn. 267 10 Conn. 372; 6 Verm.
311; 2 Fairf. 391 4 S. & R. 449; 5 Rand. 634; 6 Rand. 627; 8 S. & R. 159; 2
Yeates, 278, 466; 4 N. H. Rep. 501; 5 Day, 149; 2 N. & M. 167.
6. As to proof of adultery, see 2 Greenl. Sec. 40, Marriage.
Based on Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [Bouvier_Law_Dictionary]:
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Adultery : conjugal infidelity. An adulterer was a man who had illicit
intercourse with a married or a betrothed woman, and such a
woman was an adulteress. Intercourse between a married man and
an unmarried woman was fornication. Adultery was regarded as a
great social wrong, as well as a great sin.
The Mosaic law (Num. 5:11-31) prescribed that the suspected
wife should be tried by the ordeal of the "water of jealousy."
There is, however, no recorded instance of the application of
this law. In subsequent times the Rabbis made various
regulations with the view of discovering the guilty party, and
of bringing about a divorce. It has been inferred from John
8:1-11 that this sin became very common during the age preceding
the destruction of Jerusalem.
Idolatry, covetousness, and apostasy are spoken of as adultery
spiritually (Jer. 3:6, 8, 9; Ezek. 16:32; Hos. 1:2:3; Rev.
2:22). An apostate church is an adulteress (Isa. 1:21; Ezek.
23:4, 7, 37), and the Jews are styled "an adulterous generation"
(Matt. 12:39). (Comp. Rev. 12.)
Based on Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [Bouvier_Law_Dictionary]:
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