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Adultery

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Thou shalt not commit adultery.
~ Exodus 20:14

Adultery (from Latin adulterium) is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds.

Quotes

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Early history

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Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
~ Matthew 5:28
  • If a man's wife be surprised with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves. ¶ If a man violate the wife [betrothed or child-wife] of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless. ¶ If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not surprised with another man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house. ¶ If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.
  • And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
  • The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me: and disguiseth his face.
    • Job 24:15 (KJV)
  • For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: ¶ But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. ¶ Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. ¶ Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
  • But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
    • Proverbs 6:32 (KJV)
  • Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
    • Proverbs 30:20 (KJV)
  • Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts; ¶ Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
  • They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.
    • Hosea 7:4 (KJV)
  • Οὔ τοι σύμφορόν ἐστι γυνὴ νέα ἀνδρὶ γέροντι:
    οὐ γὰρ πηδαλίῳ πείθεται ὡς ἄκατος,
    οὐδ᾽ ἄγκυραι ἔχουσιν ἀπορρήξασα δὲ δεσμὰ
    πολλάκις ἐκ νυκτῶν ἄλλον ἔχει λιμένα.
    • A young wife suits not with an aged husband;
      For she will not obey the pilot's helm
      Like a well-managed boat; nor can the anchor
      Hold her securely in her port, but oft
      She breaks her chains and cables in the night,
      And headlong drives into another harbour.
    • Theognis of Megara, fragment quoted by Athenaeus, 13, 560a (tr. C. D. Yonge, 1854); cf. Theophilus, in his Neoptolemus
  • You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
  • It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
  • Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. ¶ And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. ¶ And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, ¶ They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. ¶ Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? ¶ This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. ¶ So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. ¶ And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. ¶ And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. ¶ When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? ¶ She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

First millennium

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  •              Curam Clymene narrabat inanem
    Vulcani Martisque dolos et dulcia furta,
    aque Chao densos divum numerabat amores.
    • Fair Clymene was telling o'er the tale
      Of Vulcan's idle vigilance and the stealth
      Of Mars' sweet rapine, and from Chaos old
      Counted the jostling love-joys of the Gods.
    • Virgil, Georgics, 4, 345 (tr. J. B. Greenough, 1900)
    • Cf. Reposianus, De Concubitu Martis et Veneris, 67

Middle Ages

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No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy, when mis’ry is at hand!
~ Dante Alighieri
  • Ȝyf weddyd man, sengle woman takeþ,
    Forsoþe spousebrechë þere he makyþ.
    Ȝyf weddyd wyfe take sengle man,
    Alle spousebreche tel y hyt þan;
    For þey haue broke with-outë fayle
    Þe chastë bondë of spousayle.

16th and 17th centuries

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  • Adultery? Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
    The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
    Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive;
    For Gloucester’s bastard son was kinder to his father
    Than my daughters got ’tween the lawful sheets.
    • William Shakespeare, King Lear, act 4, sc. 6 (Lear)
  • And then they called me foul adulteress,
    Lascivious Goth.

18th century

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  • When lovely woman stoops to folly,
      And finds too late that men betray,
    What charm can soothe her melancholy,
      What art can wash her guilt away?
    The only art her guilt to cover,
      To hide her shame from every eye,
    To give repentance to her lover,
      And wring his bosom—is to die.

19th century

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  • What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
    Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.
  • Do not adultery commit;
    Advantage rarely comes of it
  • Adultery it is not fit
    Or safe, for women, to commit.
    • Arthur Hugh Clough, "The New Decalogue" (1862), (a) British Museum MS. (b) Harvard bMS. Eng. 1036(2)
  • I saw a little burnished fly
    Within my Mistress’ bodice lie,
    Sipping lovely stolen sweets
    From her ample rosy teats.
    ‘Small adulterer,’ said I,
    ‘Dost thou know where thou dost lie?
    ‘’Tis my lady’s bosom fine,
    ‘And thou dost sip what is not thine.’

20th century

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Adultery is the application of democracy to love. ~ H. L. Mencken
Adultery is treason to the family; adulterers should be put to death.
~ Rousas John Rushdoony
  • I'll match my private wife against any man's.
    • Irving Brecher, c. March 1933, a play on ex-NYC mayor Jimmy Walker's public statement regarding his "private life", made in light of Walker's then recently publicized adultery; as quoted in Ben Schwartz, Written By (April 2006), p. 41

21st century

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  • I want to have it all. I want to have a family, a career, and a side piece.
    • Ali Wong, Don Wong (2022), commenting on the disparity of public reaction to successful men having extramarital affairs versus women

See also

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Wikipedia
Wikipedia
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Wiktionary
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