A century-old law that could previously land a man in jail for three months for cheating on a partner has now been repealed.
On November 22, New York repealed a rarely used adultery law of 1907. According to it, cheating on a spouse, if proven, can land the adulterer in jail for three months. The reason the law was repealed was that it was too difficult to enforce and was long considered outdated.
Gov. Kathy Hochul On November 23, he signed a bill that repealed the law. Commenting on this, she said: “While I have been fortunate to share a loving family life with my husband for 40 years – which makes it somewhat ironic for me to sign a bill decriminalizing adultery – I know that people often have difficult relationships. Obviously, these people should be handling the cases, not our criminal justice system.
“The adultery ban is actually the law in several states (in the US) and was introduced to make divorce more difficult at a time when proving adultery was the only way to get a legal divorce. Charges were rare, and convictions even rarer. In recent years, some states have also repealed their adultery laws,” the AP report said.
In New York, adultery was defined as when a person engages in “sexual intercourse with another person while the person has a living spouse or the other person has a living spouse.” According to the New York Times, the 1907 law was used for the first time against a married man and a 25-year-old woman just weeks after it took effect.
Over the years, many people have been charged under New York’s adultery law, but few have been convicted.
Although the law is now finally repealed, the debate over repealing the antiquated adultery law has been raging in New York for years. In the 1960s, for example, lawmakers came close to repealing the adultery law but pushed it forward when a politician said repealing it would create the impression that the state was encouraging marital infidelity, according to a 1965 New York Times report.
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