Adultery - Then & Now

Looking at Spain today, a modern and cosmopolitan country on par with New York, London or Paris, I was quite surprised at times that in some respects it's almost backward up to 30 or more years ago. I saw a recent press-photo showing a young woman holding up a large picket board, with enormous writing on it, proclaiming herself as an adulteress. She had a little child straddled on her shoulder, and her husband walking by her side! Her indiscretion had obviously been forgiven.

She was in a manifestation parade with other women, all with more or less the same wording on each picket-board; in other words, all adulteresses and wanting to let the whole world know about it. They were protesting against the law punishing adulteress for their 'Crime', with imprisonment and public shame in some countries. In Spain that was more than 30 years ago (abolished in 1976) when adultery was so considered by law but, inexplicably, their accomplices, men, were not prosecuted!

I can't help wondering that in the case of such adultery being committed with another woman, would the two then were both considered guilty? If so, one could argue that the lover, in the case of man/woman not punished, why should the female lover? Wasn't the whole thing too evident that the law was blatantly discriminating against women? Didn't any of the parliamentary members ever thought of that being absurd?

I am all for loyalty, faithfulness and mutual trust in a marriage, but I also feel that there are more than sexual desire for another that contributes to committing an adultery in some cases. In fact the underlying factor might even has nothing whatsoever to do with extra marital sex. I am almost sure that it has more to do with emotional incompatibility, lack of understanding and harmony in the marital home, and even circumstantial causes before sex being the sole motive. The husband in the photo supporting his wife testified to that in a way. He understood and therefore forgave.

Anyway that era is gone for good. Although it may not have been completely so in many minds.


Tags: Adultery,Crime,Punishment