Adultery
Adultery (informally known as cheating in non-religious situations) is a word used in religious texts like Exodus 20:14. Adultery applies to a married person having sex with someone other than the person who they are married to.
In countries where religion is important, adultery often comes with a heavy punishment. Some Muslim countries punish it with death by stoning. In most countries adultery is no longer a crime, but most people still see it as a bad thing.(see Gospel of John 8) If a person who is married takes part in adultery, that person's husband or wife would usually have the right to be able to go to court to divorce them.
Word origin[change | change source]
The word adultery originates not from “adult”, as is commonly thought in English-speaking countries, but from the Late Latin word for “to alter, corrupt”: “adulterare”. “Adulterare” in turn is formed by the combination of “ad” (towards), and “alter” (other), together with the infinitive form “are” (making it a verb). Thus the meaning is literally “to make other”. In contrast, the word “adult” (meaning a person of mature years) comes from another Latin root, “adolescere”, meaning to grow up or mature: a combination of “ad” (towards), “alere” (to nourish, to grow), and the inchoative infix “sc”(meaning to enter into a state of).
Literature[change | change source]
Famous adulterers include :
- Paris (mythology) and Helen in the Iliad
- Lancelot and Guinevere
- David and Bathsheba the wife of Uriah (2 Samuel 11)
- Anna Karenina and Vronsky
- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
- Genji
- Hestor Prynne
Related pages[change | change source]
- Infidelity: the same concept, but without a religious background