Chapter XLII: Free Love--Adultery (2)

[Footnote 135: Driver, _Commentary on Deuteronomy_, p. 264. Cheyne, 'Harlot,' in Cheyne and Black, _Encyclopædia Biblica_, ii. 1965.]

[Footnote 136: _Hosea_, iv. 14. _Cf._ Cheyne, in _Encyclopædia Biblica_, ii. 1965.]

[Footnote 137: _Deuteronomy_, xxiii. 17 _sq._]

[Footnote 138: See Westermarck, _The Moorish Conception of Holiness (Baraka)_, p. 85.]

Of a somewhat different character was the religious prostitution which prevailed in ancient Babylonia, in connection with the worship of Ishtar. Herodotus says that every woman born in that country was obliged once in her {445} life to go and sit down in the precinct of Aphrodite, and there consort with a stranger. A woman who had once taken her seat was not allowed to return home till one of the strangers threw a silver coin into her lap, and took her with him beyond the holy ground. The silver coin could not be refused because, since once thrown, it was sacred. The woman went with the first man who threw her money, rejecting no one. When she had gone with him, and so satisfied the goddess, she returned home, and from that time forth no gift, however great, would prevail with her.[139] Several allusions in cuneiform literature to the sacred prostitution carried on at Babylonian temples confirm Herodotus' statement in general.[140] A cult very similar to this was also found in certain parts of the island of Cyprus,[141] at Heliopolis in Syria,[142] and at Byblus.[143] In the worship of Anaitis the Armenians even of the highest families prostituted their own daughters at least once in their lives, nor was this regarded as any bar to an honourable marriage afterwards.[144] Although such practices were generally excluded from the ordinary Greek worships of Aphrodite, unchastity in the temple cult of that goddess is reported to have occurred at Corinth[145] and in the city of the Locri Epizephyrii, who, according to the story, vowed to consecrate their daughters to this service in order to gain the goddess's aid in a war.[146]

[Footnote 139: Herodotus, i. 199.]

[Footnote 140: Jeremias, _Izdubar-Nimrod_, p. 59 _sq._ Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 475 _sq._ Mürdter-Delitzsch, _Geschichte Babyloniens_, p. 41.]

[Footnote 141: Herodotus, i. 199. Athenæus, _Deipnosophistæ_, xii. 11, p. 516 a.]

[Footnote 142: Socrates, _Historia ecclesiastica_, 18 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Græca, lxvii. 123). Sozomen, _Historia ecclesiastica_, v. 10 (Migne, Ser. Græca, lxvii. 1243). Eusebius, _Vita Constantini_, iii. 58 (Migne, Ser. Græca, xx. 1124).]

[Footnote 143: Lucian, _De Syria Dea_, 6.]

[Footnote 144: Strabo, xi. 14. 16.]

[Footnote 145: _Ibid._ viii. 6. 20.]

[Footnote 146: Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, ii. 636. Athenæus, xii. 11, p. 516 a.]

Various theories have been set forth to explain the religious prostitution of the Babylonian type. It has been interpreted as an expiation for individual marriage, as a temporary recognition of pre-existing communal rights at a time when "communal marriage" in the full sense of the term had already ceased to exist.[147] It {446} has been supposed to be nothing but ordinary immorality practised under the cloak of religion.[148] It has been represented as a form of sacrifice, either as a first-fruit offering[149] or as an act by which a worshipper sacrifices her most precious possession to the deity.[150] To Dr. Farnell it seems to be "a special modification of a wide-spread custom, the custom of destroying virginity before marriage so that the bridegroom's intercourse should be safe from a peril that is much dreaded by men in a certain stage of culture; and here, as in other ritual," he adds, "it is the stranger that takes the peril upon himself."[151] But why should the stranger have been more willing than the bridegroom to expose himself to this danger? Considering that the act was performed at the temple of the goddess of fecundity, I think its object most probably was to ensure fertility in the woman; this, in fact, is directly indicated by the words which the stranger, according to Herodotus, uttered when he threw the silver coin into her lap:--"The goddess Mylitta prosper thee!"[152] And from what has been said in a previous chapter about the semi-supernatural character ascribed to strangers, about the efficacy of their blessings and the benefits expected from their love,[153] we can see why a stranger was appointed to confer the blessing upon the girl.[154]

[Footnote 147: Avebury, _Origin of Civilisation_, p. 559.]

[Footnote 148: Jeremias, _Izdubar-Nimrod_, p. 60.]

[Footnote 149: Wiedemann, _Herodots zweites Buch_, p. 267 _sq._]

[Footnote 150: Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, p. 155.]

[Footnote 151: Farnell, 'Sociological Hypotheses concerning the Position of Women in Ancient Religion,' in _Archiv f. Religionswiss._ vii. 88.]

[Footnote 152: Herodotus, i. 199.]

[Footnote 153: _Supra_, i. ch. xxiv.]

[Footnote 154: Since the present chapter was in type, some fresh attempts have been made to explain this religious prostitution. Sir J. G. Frazer (_Adonis Attis Osiris_, p. 23 _sq._) regards it as a rite intended to ensure the fruitfulness of the ground and the increase of man and beast on the principle of hom[oe]opathic magic. A very similar opinion has been expressed by Dr. Havelock Ellis ('Ursprung und Entwicklung der Prostitution,' in _Mutterschutz_, iii. fasc. 1 _sq._). According to Mr. Hartland, again ('Concerning the Rite at the Temple of Mylitta,' in _Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor_, p. 189 _sqq._), it was a puberty rite involving a sacrifice of virginity to which every woman was subjected. [My own theory has subsequently been accepted by van Gennep, _Les rites de passage_, p. 242 _sq._]]

Among ourselves an act of incontinence assumes a {447} different aspect if one of the parties, either the man or the woman, is married. Involving a breach of faith, adultery is an offence against him or her to whom faith is due, and at the same time the seducer commits an offence against the husband of the adulteress. But here again our own views are not universally shared.

Although it is hard to understand that the seducer could ever be regarded as guiltless, we are told that among a few peoples adultery is not held to be wrong;[155] and Mr. Morgan states that among the Iroquois "punishment was inflicted upon the woman alone, who was supposed to be the only offender."[156] But these cases are certainly quite exceptional. In a savage tribe a seducer may be thankful if he escapes by paying to the injured husband the value of the bride or some other fine, or if the penalty is reduced to a flogging, to his head being shaved, his ears cut off, one of his eyes destroyed, or his legs speared. Very commonly he has to pay with his life. We have seen that even among many peoples who generally prohibit self-redress an adulterer may be put to death by the aggrieved husband, especially if he be caught _flagrante delicto_;[157] and in other cases he may be subject to capital punishment, in the proper sense of the word.[158] In Albania, even in our days, custom not only allows, but compels, the injured husband to kill the adulterer.[159] Hebrew law enjoined the man who committed adultery with another man's wife to be put to death;[160] and Christian legislators followed the example. Constantine celebrated his new zeal for the sacramental idea of marriage by establishing the punishment of death for the seducer;[161] adultery was in point of {448} heinousness assimilated to murder, idolatry, and sorcery.[162] Various mediæval law-books punished the seducer with death;[163] whilst in Scotland notorious and manifest adultery was made capital as late as 1563.[164] This extreme severity, however, has been followed by extreme leniency. In Scotland, though adultery kept its place in the statute-book as a heinous and in some cases a capital crime, prosecution for it had ceased for many years before the time of Baron Hume;[165] and in England it is no crime at all in the eyes of the law, only an ecclesiastical offence.

[Footnote 155: Davis, _El Gringo_, p. 221 _sq._ (Indians of New Mexico). Adair, _History of the American Indians_, p. 146 (Cherokees). Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, p. 204. Prejevalsky, _Mongolia_, i. 70 (Mongols). Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, p. 75 (Yendalines, one of the Karen tribes). Chanler, _op. cit._ p. 317 (Rendile in Eastern Africa). Lichtenstein, _Travels in Southern Africa_, ii. 48 (Bushmans).]

[Footnote 156: Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 331.]

[Footnote 157: _Supra_, i. 290 _sqq._]

[Footnote 158: _Supra_, i. 189.]

[Footnote 159: Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_, i. 177.]

[Footnote 160: _Leviticus_, xx. 10. _Deuteronomy_, xxii. 22.]

[Footnote 161: _Codex Justinianus_, ix. 9. 29. 4.]

[Footnote 162: _Codex Theodosianus_, xi. 36. i. St. Basil, quoted by Bingham, _Works_, vi. 432 _sq._]

[Footnote 163: Du Boys, _Histoire du droit criminel des peuples modernes_, ii. 606. _Idem_, _Histoire du droit criminel de l'Espagne_, p. 391.]

[Footnote 164: Erskine-Rankine, _Principles of the Law of Scotland_, p. 563.]

[Footnote 165: Hume, _Commentaries on the Law of Scotland_, ii. 302.]

The punishment of the seducer often varies according to his rank, or according to that of the husband, or according to the relative rank of both, or according to the rank of the adulteress. Among the Monbuttu, if the guilty woman belongs to the royal household, the adulterer is put to death, whereas otherwise he is only compelled to pay an indemnity to the offended husband.[166] Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the fine imposed for adultery depends on the rank of the injured husband;[167] and the same principle is found in Anglo-Saxon law.[168] Among the Bakongo, again, the penalties for adultery "vary from capital punishment to a trifling fine, according to the station of the offender or the district he lives in."[169] Drury tells us that in the country of Anterndroea in Madagascar, "if a man lies with another man's wife who is superior to him, he forfeits thirty head of cattle besides beads and shovels a great number," whereas "if the men are of an equal rank, then twenty beasts are the fine."[170] According to the Chinese Penal Code, a slave who is guilty of criminal intercourse with the wife or daughter of a freeman, shall be punished at the least one degree more {449} severely than a freeman would have been under the same circumstances.[171] In India a man of one of the first three castes who committed adultery with a Sûdra woman was banished, but a Sûdra who committed adultery with a woman of one of the first three castes suffered capital punishment;[172] and an opinion is also quoted that for a Brâhmana who once was guilty of adultery with a married woman of equal class, the penance was one-fourth of that prescribed for an outcast.[173] In ancient Peru "an adulterer was punish'd with death, if the woman was of note, or else with the rack."[174]

[Footnote 166: Casati, _Ten Years in Equatoria_, i. 163.]

[Footnote 167: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples_, p. 202.]

[Footnote 168: _Laws of Alfred_, ii. 10.]

[Footnote 169: Johnston, _River Congo_, p. 404.]

[Footnote 170: Drury, _Journal_, p. 183.]

[Footnote 171: _Ta Tsing Leu Lee_, sec. ccclxxiii. p. 409.]

[Footnote 172: _Âpastamba_, ii. 10. 27. 8 _sq._]

[Footnote 173: _Ibid._ ii. 10. 27. 11.]

[Footnote 174: Herrera, _op. cit._ iv. 338.]

We find no difficulty in explaining all these facts. In early civilisation a husband has often extreme rights over his wife. The seducer encroaches upon a right of which he is most jealous, and with regard to which his passions are most easily inflamed. Adultery is regarded as an illegitimate appropriation of the exclusive claims which the husband has acquired by the purchase of his wife, as an offence against property.[175] It is said in the 'Laws of Manu' that "seed must not be sown by any man on that which belongs to another."[176] How closely the seducer is associated with a thief is illustrated by the fact that among some peoples he is punished as such, having his hands, or one of them, cut off.[177] Yet even among savages the offence is something more than a mere infringement of the right of ownership. The Kurile Islanders, says Krasheninnikoff, have an extraordinary way of punishing adultery: the husband of the adulteress challenges the adulterer to a combat. The result is generally the death of both the combatants; but it is held to be "as great dishonour to refuse this combat as to refuse an invitation to a duel among the people of Europe."[178] The passion of jealousy, the feeling of ownership, and the sense of honour, {450} thus combine to make the seducer's act an offence, and often a heinous offence, in the eyes of custom or law; and for the same reasons as in other offences the magnitude of guilt is here also influenced by the rank of the parties concerned. Modern legislation, on the other hand, does not to the same extent as early law and custom allow a man to give free vent to his angry passion; it regards the dishonour of the aggrieved husband as a matter of too private a character to be publicly avenged; and the faithfulness which a wife owes her husband is no longer connected with any idea of ownership. Moreover, the severity of earlier European laws against adultery was closely connected with Christianity's abhorrence of all kinds of irregular sexual intercourse; and secular legislation has more and more freed itself from the bondage of religious doctrine.

[Footnote 175: See, _e.g._, Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 225; Burton, _Two Trips to Gorilla Land_, i. 77; Monrad, _Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 5; Letourneau, _L'évolution de la morale_, p. 154 _sq._]

[Footnote 176: _Laws of Manu_, ix. 42.]

[Footnote 177: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 130.]

[Footnote 178: Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, p. 238.]

Among some savage peoples it is the seducer only who suffers, whilst the unfaithful wife escapes without punishment.[179] Jealousy, in the first place, turns against the rival, and the seducer is the dishonourer and the thief. But, as a general rule, the unfaithful wife is also looked upon as an offender, and the punishment falls on both. She is discarded, beaten, or ill-treated in some way or other, and not infrequently she is killed. Often, too, she is disfigured by her enraged husband, so that no man may fall in love with her ever after.[180] Indeed, so strong is the idea that a wife belongs exclusively to her husband, that among several peoples she has to die with him;[181] and frequently a widow is prohibited from remarrying either for ever or for a certain period after the husband's death.[182] In ancient Peru widows generally continued to live single, as "this virtue was much commended in their laws and ordinances."[183] Nor is it in China considered proper {451} for a woman to contract a second marriage after her husband's death, and a lady of rank, by doing so, exposes herself to a penalty of eighty blows.[184] "As a faithful minister does not serve two lords, neither may a faithful woman marry a second husband"--this is to the Chinese a principle of life, a maxim generally received as gospel.[185] Among so-called Aryan peoples the ancient custom which ordained sacrifice of widows survived in the prohibitions issued against their marrying a second time.[186] Even now the bare mention of a second marriage for a Hindu woman would be considered the greatest of insults, and, if she married again, "she would be hunted out of society, and no decent person would venture at any time to have the slightest intercourse with her."[187] In Greece[188] and Rome[189] a widow's remarriage was regarded as an insult to her former husband; and so it is still regarded among the Southern Slavs.[190] The early Christians, especially the Montanists and Novatians, strongly disapproved of second marriages by persons of either sex;[191] a second marriage was described by them as a "kind of fornication,"[192] or as a "specious adultery."[193] It was looked upon as a manifest sign of incontinence, and also as inconsistent with the doctrine that marriage is an emblem of the union of Christ with the Church.[194]

[Footnote 179: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 122. Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 133 (Kandhs). Batchelor, _Ainu of Japan_, p. 189 _sq._ Scaramucci and Giglioli, 'Notizie sui Danakil,' in _Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia_, xiv. 26.]

[Footnote 180: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 122.]

[Footnote 181: _Ibid._ p. 125 _sq._ _Supra_, i. 472 _sqq._]

[Footnote 182: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 127 _sqq._]

[Footnote 183: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 305.]

[Footnote 184: Gray, _China_, i. 215.]

[Footnote 185: de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol. ii. book) i. 745.]

[Footnote 186: Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, p. 391.]

[Footnote 187: Dubois, _People of India_, p. 132.]

[Footnote 188: Pausanias, ii. 21. 7.]

[Footnote 189: Rossbach, _Römische Ehe_, p. 262.]

[Footnote 190: Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, p. 578. _Cf._ Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 115 (Bulgarians).]

[Footnote 191: Mayer, _Die Rechte der Israeliten, Athener und Römer_, ii. 290. Bingham, _op. cit._ vi. 427 _sq._; viii. 13 _sq._]

[Footnote 192: Tertullian, _De exhortatione castitatis_, 9 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, ii. 924).]

[Footnote 193: Athenagoras, _Legatio pro Christianis_, 33 (Migne, _op. cit._ Ser. Graeca, vi. 967).]

[Footnote 194: Gibbon, _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, ii. 187. Lecky, _History of European Morals_, ii. 326.]

Conjugal fidelity, whilst considered a stringent duty in the wife, is not generally considered so in the husband. This is obviously the rule among savage and barbarous tribes; but there are interesting exceptions to the rule. The Igorrotes of Luzon are so strictly monogamous that {452} in case of adultery the guilty party can be compelled to leave the hut and the family for ever,[195] and among various other monogamous savages adultery is said to be unknown.[196] The Dyak husband "preserves his vow of fidelity with a rectitude which makes jealousy a farce."[197] The Toungtha, who marry only one wife, do not consider it right for a master to take advantage of his position even with regard to the female slaves in his house.[198] Nay, the duty of fidelity in the husband has been recognised even by some savage peoples who allow polygamy. The Abipones, we are told, thought it both wicked and disgraceful to have any illicit intercourse with other women than their wives; hence adultery was almost unheard of among them.[199] Among the Omaha Indians, "if a woman's husband be guilty of adultery with another woman she may strike him or the guilty female in her anger," though she cannot claim damages.[200] In several tribes of Western Victoria a wife whose husband has been unfaithful to her "may make a complaint to the chief, who can punish the man by sending him away from his tribe for two or three moons";[201] and among some aborigines in New South Wales similar complaints may be made to the elders of the tribe, with the result that the adulterous husband may have to suffer for his conduct.[202] The Kandhs of India deny the married man certain prerogatives which are granted to his wife: whilst constancy to her husband is so far from being required in a wife, "that her pretensions do not, at least, suffer diminution in the eyes of either sex when fines are levied on her convicted lovers," infidelity in a married man is held to be highly dishonourable, and {453} is often punished with deprivation of many social privileges.[203]

[Footnote 195: Meyer, in _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. f. Anthrop._ 1883, p. 385.]

[Footnote 196: Bailey, in _Trans. Ethn. Soc._ N. S. ii. 291 _sq._ Hartshorne, in _Indian Antiquary_, viii. 320 (Veddahs). Finsch, _Neu-Guinea_, p. 101; Earl, _Papuans_, p. 81 (Papuans of Dorey).]

[Footnote 197: Boyle, _Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo_, p. 236. See also Low, _Sarawak_, p. 300 (Hill Dyaks).]

[Footnote 198: Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_, p. 193 _sq._]

[Footnote 199: Dobrizhoffer, _Account of the Abipones_, ii. 138.]

[Footnote 200: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 364.]

[Footnote 201: Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 202: Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial System_, p. 18.]

[Footnote 203: Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 133.]

The duty which savages thus in certain instances have imposed on the husband is hardly at all recognised in the archaic State. The Mexicans "did not consider, nor did they punish, as adultery the trespass of a husband with any woman who was free, or not joined in matrimony; wherefore the husband was not bound to so much fidelity as was exacted from the wife," adultery in her being inevitably punished with death.[204] In China, where adultery in a woman is branded as one of the vilest crimes and the guilty wife is oftentimes "cut into small pieces," concubinage is a recognised institution of the country.[205] In Corea "conjugal fidelity--obligatory on the woman--is not required of the husband. . . . Among the nobles, the young bridegroom spends three or four days with his bride, and then absents himself from her for a considerable time, to prove that he does not esteem her too highly. Etiquette dooms her to a species of widowhood, while he spends his hours of relaxation in the society of his concubines. To act otherwise would be considered in very bad taste, and highly unfashionable."[206] In Japan, "while the man is allowed a loose foot, the woman is expected not only to be absolutely spotless, but also never to show any jealousy, however wide the husband may roam, or however numerous may be the concubines in his family."[207] According to Hebrew law adultery was a capital offence, but it presupposed that the guilty woman was another man's wife.[208] The "Aryan" nations in early times generally saw nothing objectionable in the unfaithfulness of a married man, whereas an adulterous wife was subject to the severest penalties.[209] Until some time after the introduction of Christianity among the Teutons their {454} law-books made no mention of the infidelity of husbands, because it was permitted by custom.[210] The Romans defined adultery as sexual intercourse with another man's wife; on the other hand, the intercourse of a married man with an unmarried woman was not regarded as adultery.[211] The ordinary Greek feeling on the subject is expressed in the oration against Neæra, ascribed to Demosthenes, where the licence accorded to husbands is spoken of as a matter of course:--"We keep mistresses for our pleasures, concubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us legitimate children and to be our faithful house-keepers."[212]

[Footnote 204: Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 356.]

[Footnote 205: Doolittle, _op. cit._ i. 339. Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 149.]

[Footnote 206: Griffis, _Corea_, p. 251 _sq._]

[Footnote 207: _Idem_, _Religions of Japan_, p. 320.]

[Footnote 208: _Leviticus_, xx. 10. _Deuteronomy_, xxii. 22.]

[Footnote 209: Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, p. 388.]

[Footnote 210: Wilda, _Strafrecht der Germanen_, p. 821. Nordström, _op. cit._ ii. 67 _sq._ Stemann, _Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.'s Lov_, pp. 324, 633. Keyser, _Efterladte Skrifter_, vol. ii. pt. ii. 32 _sq._ Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 662.]

[Footnote 211: Vinnius, _In quatuor libros institutionum imperialium commentarius_, iv. 18. 4, p. 993. _Cf._ _Digesta_, l. 16. 101. 1; Mommsen, _Römisches Strafrecht_, p. 688 _sq._]

[Footnote 212: _Oratio in Neæram_, p. 1386. _Cf._ Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 196 _sq._]

At the same time the idea that fidelity in marriage ought to be reciprocal was not altogether unknown in classical antiquity.[213] In a lost chapter of his 'Economics,' which has come to us only through a Latin translation, Aristotle points out that it for various reasons is prudent for a man to be faithful to his wife, but that nothing is so peculiarly the property of a wife as a chaste and hallowed intercourse.[214] Plutarch condemns the man who, lustful and dissolute, goes astray with a courtesan or maid-servant; though at the same time he admonishes the wife not to be vexed or impatient, considering that "it is out of respect to her that he bestows upon another all his wanton depravity."[215] Plautus argues that it is unjust of a husband to exact a fidelity which he does not keep himself.[216]

[Footnote 213: Lecky, _op. cit._ ii. 312 _sq._ Schmidt, _op. cit._ ii. 195 _sq._]

[Footnote 214: Aristotle, _[OE]conomica_, p. 341, vol. ii. 679. _Cf._ Isocrates, _Nicocles sive Cyprii_, 40.]

[Footnote 215: Plutarch, _Conjugalia præcepta_, 16.]

[Footnote 216: Plautus, _Mercator_, iv. 5.]

In its condemnation of adultery Christianity made no distinction between husband and wife.[217] If continence is a stringent duty for unmarried persons independently of {455} their sex, the observance of the sacred marriage vow must be so in a still higher degree. But here again there is a considerable discrepancy between the actual feelings of Christian peoples and the standard of their religion. Even in the laws of various European countries relating to divorce or judicial separation we find an echo of the popular notion that adultery is a smaller offence in a husband than in a wife.[218]

[Footnote 217: Laurent, _op. cit._ iv. 114. Gratian, _Decretum_, ii. 35. 5. 23.]

[Footnote 218: See _supra_, ii. 397.]

The judgment pronounced upon an unfaithful husband is of course influenced by the opinion about extra-matrimonial connections in general. Where it is considered wrong for a man to have intercourse with either an unmarried woman or another man's wife, adultery in a husband is _eo ipso_ condemned. But whether, or how far, infidelity on his part is stigmatised as an offence against his wife, chiefly depends upon the degree of regard which is paid to the feelings of women. That a married man generally enjoys more liberty than a married woman is largely due to the same causes as make him the more privileged partner in other respects; but there are also special reasons for this inequality between the sexes. It was a doctrine of the Roman jurists that adultery is a crime in the wife, and in the wife only, on account of the danger of introducing strange children to the husband.[219] Moreover, the temptation to infidelity and the facility in indulging in it are commonly greater in the case of the husband than in that of the wife; and, as we have often noticed before, actual practice is always apt to influence moral opinion. And a still more important reason for the inequality in question is undoubtedly the general notion that unchastity of any kind is more discreditable for a woman than for a man.

[Footnote 219: Hunter, _Exposition of Roman Law_, p. 1071.]