Should adultery carry legal penalties?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

no, but it should carry far higher negatives from the friends, family and acquaintances of those that do it.  If you're willing to stand in front of your god, your friends and loved ones and lie to their faces, you're not someone who can be trusted with much of anything.

This. There should be next to no social toleration of infidelity but it shouldn't carry penal consequences.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

no, but it should carry far higher negatives from the friends, family and acquaintances of those that do it.  If you're willing to stand in front of your god, your friends and loved ones and lie to their faces, you're not someone who can be trusted with much of anything.

This. There should be next to no social toleration of infidelity but it shouldn't carry penal consequences.

How do you feel about "polyamorous" people?

Polyamorous people gentrified being promiscuous.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

no, but it should carry far higher negatives from the friends, family and acquaintances of those that do it.  If you're willing to stand in front of your god, your friends and loved ones and lie to their faces, you're not someone who can be trusted with much of anything.

This. There should be next to no social toleration of infidelity but it shouldn't carry penal consequences.

I find it hard to imagine any other behavior that you have such an unforgiving attitude towards.

You do? Really?

(Serious answer: yes, people do make occasional mistakes, even serious ones, that aren't necessarily reflections of their overall character or the overall quality of their relationships with others; this is why I said "next to no" rather than "no". However, I think that the vast majority of the time a "moment of weakness" in the context of infidelity is symptomatic of broader issues, issues that don't necessarily themselves have anything special to do with sex.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

no, but it should carry far higher negatives from the friends, family and acquaintances of those that do it.  If you're willing to stand in front of your god, your friends and loved ones and lie to their faces, you're not someone who can be trusted with much of anything.

This. There should be next to no social toleration of infidelity but it shouldn't carry penal consequences.

I find it hard to imagine any other behavior that you have such an unforgiving attitude towards.

You do? Really?

(Serious answer: yes, people do make occasional mistakes, even serious ones, that aren't necessarily reflections of their overall character or the overall quality of their relationships with others; this is why I said "next to no" rather than "no". However, I think that the vast majority of the time a "moment of weakness" in the context of infidelity is symptomatic of broader issues, issues that don't necessarily themselves have anything special to do with sex.)

It's impossible to know what really goes on in someone else's marriage, though. What may appear to be one person cheating on the surface could be a "marriage" that has completely broken down but is not legally separated or divorced for some reason (finances, kids, family/social pressure, etc.), abuse or neglect coming in the other direction, or any number of other situations. I don't think there is any need to even attempt to cast any sort of rigid, puritanical judgement on anyone when we can never know the full context. It's their private life, we know nothing about it, and we don't need to know unless they choose to share, and even then, we can only know one side of the story.

I'm speaking from the (hypothetical) perspective of someone who knows the (hypothetical) couple fairly well. I believe that it's generally possible to arrive at a good working understanding of a loved one's private situation even if you don't know it in all its intricacies.

Regardless, this discussion has drifted far afield from the original political/legal question Dule asked (to which I think we agree the answer is "obviously no, other than maybe redounding to the adulterer's discredit during divorce proceedings"), so I'm happy to drop it for now if you are.

What I find unacceptable in a western developed society is advocating the social ostracism of those found guilty of infidelity, especially is this call comes from our libertarian (liberticide?) folks

Just because others are free to act as they choose doesn't mean we aren't free to judge them for those actions.

I love being tactically allied with you on issues like this. It's a shame our worldviews aren't conducive to it happening more often.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My opinion is that a person is not entitled to claim for individual freedom while avoiding individual responsibility.

This is my opinion as well. Which is why I take hard moral lines against behaviors like infidelity.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Another question is encouraging or pressing the social circle of a person that commits infidelity to ostracize him or her.

I don't think anyone in this thread was advocating for this.

I know I wasn't. We have freedom of association in this country, and there plenty of ways to register intense social disapproval short of ostracizing people. This all-or-nothing attitude towards whether or not to treat an immoral behavior charitably is the cancer that's killing moral reasoning.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Another question is encouraging or pressing the social circle of a person that commits infidelity to ostracize him or her.

I don't think anyone in this thread was advocating for this.

I know I wasn't. We have freedom of association in this country, and there plenty of ways to register intense social disapproval short of ostracizing people. This all-or-nothing attitude towards whether or not to treat an immoral behavior charitably is the cancer that's killing moral reasoning.

I was referring to this quote in particular. The implications are more serious than they appear

no, but it should carry far higher negatives from the friends, family and acquaintances of those that do it. If you're willing to stand in front of your god, your friends and loved ones and lie to their faces, you're not someone who can be trusted with much of anything.

There is a difference between saying "I personally disapprove that misconduct" and saying "this behaviour should carry more negative consequences for the offender un his or her social circle". Taking it to the extreme, the sentence In bold letters carries a a dangerous logic.

"Taking it to the extreme", almost any strong opinion "carries a dangerous logic". That's not unique to dead0man's opinion on infidelity.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Again,

there plenty of ways to register intense social disapproval short of ostracizing people. This all-or-nothing attitude towards whether or not to treat an immoral behavior charitably is the cancer that's killing moral reasoning.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Again,

there plenty of ways to register intense social disapproval short of ostracizing people. This all-or-nothing attitude towards whether or not to treat an immoral behavior charitably is the cancer that's killing moral reasoning.

Fair enough  but I don't think the general attitude of society towards infidelity is "charitable ".

As well it shouldn't be. What I'm saying--and what I'm evidently going to have to keep saying until I get sick of this thread--is that there are mechanisms of sanction that society has for its members that fall far short of ostracism, and that can and should be used in a great many situations in which sterner measures can't or shouldn't be. When my great-aunt Anna "Gorg" Gorglione found out that her sisters were cheating on their husbands while they (the husbands) were away fighting World War II, she chewed them out over the dinner table a few times and got them sh**tty Christmas presents.

Also, given the multiple personal circumstances involved, I wouldn't raise a general case against infidels

1. People keep saying this in this thread and I guess they have a point, but no amount of "multiple personal circumstances" changes the fact that the act of adultery looked at in the abstract is a sh**tty thing to do and the nature of the act militates against putting up with people doing it. If we're unwilling to say that some actions, as actions, are less morally acceptable than other actions just because "multiple personal circumstances" might apply in the lives of the people who commit them, then why talk about morality at all, on any subject?
2. "Infidel" in English is used exclusively as a dated pejorative for followers of religions other than the speaker's. It's never used to describe someone who's sexually unfaithful.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Again,

there plenty of ways to register intense social disapproval short of ostracizing people. This all-or-nothing attitude towards whether or not to treat an immoral behavior charitably is the cancer that's killing moral reasoning.

Fair enough  but I don't think the general attitude of society towards infidelity is "charitable ".

As well it shouldn't be. What I'm saying--and what I'm evidently going to have to keep saying until I get sick of this thread--is that there are mechanisms of sanction that society has for its members that fall far short of ostracism, and that can and should be used in a great many situations in which sterner measures can't or shouldn't be. When my great-aunt Anna "Gorg" Gorglione found out that her sisters were cheating on their husbands while they (the husbands) were away fighting World War II, she chewed them out over the dinner table a few times and got them sh**tty Christmas presents.

Women have both historically and to this day suffered disproportionately from legal and social charges of adultery. They often suffer blame even when they aren't the one who cheated. (Hillary Clinton et passim). Even women are more likely to blame other women for their husbands infidelity (Cardiff Met had a study on this in the age of online affairs looking at Facebook messages).

It's why I'm not a fan of airing even tacit dissaproval because we know it's effects and how it can be weaponised is disproportionate. And you can't balance it because the scales are too tipped towards misogynistic and patriarchal structures of power, roles and responsibilities.

Tldr; the real world implications disproportionately affect women. I think it's always worth pausing for thought.

I understand this point and I've considered it carefully over the years; I don't know if these sorts of inequities register as morally significant for Dule and dead0 or not, but they do for me and they do influence how I respond to these things in real situations. (A formerly-close friend of mine serially cheated on her now-ex-husband and then abruptly divorced him, and I stayed out of it because the husband was someone who gave me bad vibes for other reasons and seemed like he might be psychologically abusive or controlling.) I'm just not of the belief that we can or should entirely abdicate our responsibility to respond to immoral behavior because there are inequities in how those responses have been applied. The idea that we shouldn't even tacitly disapprove in these situations strikes me as the sexual equivalent of tiptoeing around criticizing banking practices because doing so has often been used as a front for antisemitism (and yes, I have met and talked to people who do just that). It also strikes me as defeatist, honestly, since the implication is that it's impossible to construct a socially enforceable, non-misogynistic morality of interpersonal relationships. The project of constructing just that is not one that I'm willing to give up on.

Even women are more likely to blame other women for their husbands infidelity (Cardiff Met had a study on this in the age of online affairs looking at Facebook messages).

Hence the enduring country music tradition of female artists establishing their bravado by promising to shake down anyone who fools around with their man:

Between this and "The Pill", the sociological perspectives of Loretta Lynn are quite fascinating. Of course, Parton's immortal "Jolene" is a beautiful subversion of the trope that displays a piercing vulnerability.

There's a cottage industry of lesbian erotica based on the Euripides play Medea where she avenges Jason's abandonment of her for Glauce by seducing Glauce before Glauce consummates her relationship with Jason. I haven't read much/any of it because I don't like reading erotica in general, but it's a guilty pleasure of a (female) classicist friend of mine.