quotations about adultery
In nearly all courts, adultery is sufficient cause for divorce, and very properly so. It is the most heinous violation of the duty and trust attached to a conjugal union. Everything besides pales in comparison with adultery in the enormity of its malfeasance in the marital sphere. It is such a flagrant abuse of duty and fidelity that the conjugal pair owe to each other, that it has even been recognized by divine law as sufficient cause for divorce, and as long as civilization has a foothold, and morality considered a virtue, so long will adultery be regarded subversive to the integrity of the conjugal union.
PHELPS O. BROWN
The Complete Herbalist
Adultery ... is the brand that inflames the worst passions in the one who has thus been injured and disgraced by his or her conjugal associate, surely engendering hate and detestation if the proper value is placed upon marital loyalty.... The wound is incurable, and prolongation of the wedded association only aggravates. Therefore, the only remedy is a legal separation from the one who has proved so unworthy.
PHELPS O. BROWN
The Complete Herbalist
Thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her.
LEVITICUS 18:20
Adultery: Two wrong people doing the right thing.
ANONYMOUS
As expected, adultery is punished most severely in patrilineal, polygynous societies. In contrast, it is usually not considered much of a problem in matrilineal societies.
CAREL P. VAN SCHAIK
The Primate Origins of Human Nature
Sadly, so many people think that infidelity starts as late as physical contact or worse, as late as sexual intimacy. Truth be told, infidelity starts much earlier than that.
PATRICK MABILOG
"Why infidelity never starts with sex and what you can do to guard against it", Christian Today, September 4, 2016
The role of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous; but the role of a man who was pursuing a married woman, and who made it the purpose of his life at all cost to draw her into adultery, was one which had in it something beautiful and dignified and could never be ridiculous.
LEO TOLSTOY
Anna Karenina
Why are conservatives so hung up about sex anyway? [Some think] adultery is the root of society's evils. Well yeah, adultery involves rooting, but I could think of so many greater evils.
JULIA SURYAKUSUMA
"'Zinaphobia', homophobia and the 'bukan-bukan' state", The Jakarta Post, September 7, 2016
I never had but one intrigue yet: but I confess I long to have another. Pray heaven it end as the first did tho', that we may both grow weary at a time; for 'tis a melancholy thing for lovers to outlive one another.
SIR JOHN VANBRUGH
The Relapse
God bids you not to commit lechery, that is, not to have sex with any woman except your wife. You ask of her that she should not have sex with anyone except you -- yet you are not willing to observe the same restraint in return.
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
Sermons 1-19
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, is much more common where the climate's sultry.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Are men stupid? How else can we explain the endless parade of otherwise successful individuals, who by all appearances seem intelligent and competent, and yet risk destroying their careers and their personal lives over the chance to have a sexual escapade?... I believe the common denominator, the proximate cause of the irrational behavior, is arrogance; the belief by some powerful men that they can get away with it. That the world is still their unchallenged domain, as it was years ago, when few people knew about a president bringing women to the White House to have sex, as John F. Kennedy did, or pressuring his secretary to yield to sexual advances, as was common. It is willful ignorance that the world has changed.... That we're finding out about these men, and that their political careers are in many cases ending, is a sign that society is changing. That it continues to happen, to seemingly intelligent, disciplined individuals, is a sign that the process will be slow. And that, in the final analysis, if it has to do with sex, some men really are stupid.
FRIDA GHITIS
"Are men stupid?", CNN, April 23, 2012
Adultery is a meanness and a stealing, a taking away from someone what should be theirs, a great selfishness, and surrounded and guarded by lies lest it should be found out. And out of meanness and selfishness and lying flow love and joy and peace beyond anything that can be imagined.
ROSE MACAULAY
The Towers of Trebizond
Even though adultery is punishable by death in some societies, it still occurs regularly. This tells Dr. Helen Fisher there is probably a genetic predisposition toward cheating on your partner. Of course not everyone cheats, so it's not necessary for survival, but if we dial back ten thousand years, to a time when resources were more scarce, adultery would have helped genes survive the present generation and be passed onto the next. That gives a clear rational for men's desire to cheat, but what about women?
HELEN FISHER
"The Brain Has 3 Systems for Mating -- Combined, They Promote Adultery", BigThink, March 14, 2016
Adultery is the application of democracy to love.
H. L. MENCKEN
Mencken Chrestomathy
A wife fumbles around with you in the dark; a mistress you meet in broad daylight, right on the sofa.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit at Rest
The sin of adultery is scarcely less enormous than that of murder. The latter destroys man's temporal existence, the former destroys all that makes existence a boon. Were all to take the license of the adulterer men would in due time be reduced to the degradation of wild beasts.
R. L. DABNEY
attributed, Ten Commandments
Some will call my dance with the Shaman Lover just a clever name for an extramarital affair. Before I took the plunge with him, I would have had the same reaction. I would have been unsparing in my judgment of those who could be so deceitful, so morally lazy. I would have wondered if they knew the difference between right and wrong. Now I know that "right" without its shadow partner, "wrong," is a brittle and untested idea. Now I know that when we show only our light side to the world, our shadow grows restless, sucking into itself much of our energy and passion. In order to release my trapped energy and awaken my best qualities, I had to engage with my shadow. I had to be broken open so fully that my whole self was laid out before me to own and to forgive and to love. Before I could participate freely in wonders of the world, I had to taste the dark fruit and leave the garden of my innocence.
ELIZABETH LESSER
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
Infants have their infancy; adults, adultery.
DAVID P. BARASH
The Myth of Monogamy
The adulterer must become a liar and a villain; he not unfrequently breaks all the commandments of God, before he can ruin the object of which he is in pursuit.
W. DODD
Attributed, Day's Collacon