Adultery - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition adultery

Definition :

Adultery [ad. Lat., and alter, another person], anciently termed Advowtry (quasi ad alterius thorum). The sin of incontinence between two married persons, or it may be where only one of them is married, in which case it may be called single adultery to distinguish it from the other, which has sometimes been called double.

By the (English) Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, which created a Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes (superseding the Ecclesiastical Court) which would grant to the innocent party a divorce a mensa et thoro on the ground of the other's adultery, a husband could obtain a dissolution of his marriage (before that Act, only obtainable and not infrequently obtained by a private Act of Parliament) upon the ground of his wife's adultery, and a wife could obtain a judicial separation on the ground of her husband's adultery, or a dissolution of marriage on the ground of his adultery coupled with cruelty or desertion or bigamy, or of his incestuous adultery, provided there be no collusion or connivance, and that the alleged charges have not been condoned. The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1923, gave a wife the right to divorce a husband for adultery only if committed after the marriage and since July 18, 1923. S. 176 of the (English) Judicature Act, 1925 (15 & 16 Geo. 5, c. 49), now governs the grounds for divorce, and s. 185 those for judicial separation. By s. 189 a husband may claim damages from an adulterer (who in ordinary circumstances must be made a co-respondent,

s. 177) to be assessed by a jury, and the Court has power to direct in what manner the damages shall be paid and that the whole or any part thereof shall be settled for the benefit of the children or the wife. see now DIVORCE and also HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Where a man finds another in the act of adultery with his wife, see Rex v. Greening, (1913) 3 KB 846, and kills him or her, in the first transport of passion, he is only guilty of manslaughter, and this has been extended to a sudden confession by a wife of past adultery, R. v. Rothwell, (1871) 12 Cox CC 145; Rex v. Jones, (1908) 72 JP 215; but the killing of an adulterer deliberately and upon revenge is murder.

Formerly the husband of an adulteress was relieved from the obligation to support her, though he himself had committed adultery and was the first offender, but now see the very full powers of granting maintenance and alimony which the Court has by virtue of the (English) Judicature Act, 1925 (15 & 16 Geo. 5, c. 49), s. 190. Proof of a wife's adultery is a good defence to a summons against the husband for maintenance under s. 6 of the (English) Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895, unless the husband has condoned, connived at or conduced to the adultery. An order already made may be set aside by proof of the wife's subsequent adultery, or even on proof of prior adultery, if unknown to the husband at the time of the previous hearing, or if he was unable to prove it owing to sufficient cause, e.g., non-attendance through illness.

The word is also used by ecclesiastical writers to describe the intrusion of a person into a bishopric during the former bishop's life. The reason of the appellation is, that a bishop is supposed to contract a sort of spiritual marriage with his church.

Adultery is a ground of divorce in Scotland.

Under the civil law has a wider connotation than under the Penal Code, Sowmithri Vishnu v. Union of India, 1985 Supp SCC 137 (144): AIR 1985 SC 1618. (Penal Code, 1860, s. 497)