A young man in his early 20's was found guilty of murder this past week in our community. It turned out that his wife was cheating on him with another young man. In his anger, he set fire to the house where this man lived and killed him. The young man who set the fire was found guilty. I don't for a minute condone what he did. It was very wrong to express his anger in such a way. But, my question is this, why is the sin of adultry not equally addressed in our society? Thou shalt not commit adultry is one of the commandments just as much as is Thou shalt not kill. Why do we as a society just turn our heads when someone cheats on their mate? Wouldn't our lives be very different if married people knew that if they cheated on their spouses they might have to spend time in jail or prison? I guess we can only dream of that kind of life...
Good question. I don't know the reason, but I can make a few guesses.
First of all, I think it's because people want the "right" to commit adultery without consequences, and some of those people are people in a position to write laws.
Secondly, the old adultery laws were written so that a married woman committing adultery and the partner she took were guilty of a crime, but a married man committing adultery with an unmarried woman was not committing adultery. People felt (rightly so) that this was an unfair law. Rather than keeping adultery a crime, the law was removed.
Third, I think it's because adultery can be hard to prove, since it's normally not witnessed by anyone but the parties committing the act.
Finally, I think people found that many cases of adultery involved "double-adultery" where both parties were married, and therefore both betrayed spouses were entitled to prosecute the affair partners. Of course any prosecution of the affair partners would also affect the betrayed spouses.
In the Bible, adultery is given the same status as murder, so those who follow those beliefs understand it is a very serious misdeed. Even if society does not treat it with the seriousness that it deserves, any wayward spouse should know that they are 'fortunate' that society does not treat it as seriously as they should.
I don't think a law like that would help. I do think that the other party should pay something towards the cost of the breakup if it happens but that's all.
Ultimately it might stop some affairs but only through fear of legal consequences. I'd want my spouse to avoid it out of love, or to not hurt me, or because she was less insecure. Now that's a world I'd like to live in and it has nothing to do with laws!
"But, my question is this, why is the sin of adultery not equally addressed in our society? Thou shalt not commit adultery is one of the commandments just as much as is Thou shalt not kill. ......
Wouldn't our lives be very different if married people knew that if they cheated on their spouses they might have to spend time in jail or prison? I guess we can only dream of that kind of life..."
Wow... really?
Because this line of thinking is equating the commandments to civil laws and while they may be good Jewish laws and Christian laws, I fear the day when faith based civil laws become enacted.
We all might like to think that our faith should rule but that only fits when it's OUR faith setting the rules. What's right in OUR faith is right and what's not allowed in OUR faith should not be allowed...
Would we be content if meat were outlawed on Fridays?
or pork couldn't be eaten? or if all meat were outlawed? What if all coffee and tea was outlawed? or all alcohol? or dancing? What if you were required to pray towards Mecca five times a day or required to wear a burka? What if you HAD to make the Sign of the Cross before you started a prayer? What if the faith in the majority felt women should have no property rights? and what if the Sabbath was really kept holy and we couldn't go out for dinner after church or go shopping, buy gas, do laundry or log onto VPN and finish that presentation for Monday for fear of having to spend time in jail or prison?
If Christians cannot follow our own sub-set of rules with eternity on the line, laws putting the near-term future on hold seem a bit worthless. Our own rules/faith are hard enough to follow without hoping we could maintain the voting majority so someone else's rules/faith didn't impose on us.
No, I'm all for keeping laws and commandments separate even if sometimes they do overlap.
