PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Adultt:-y.
CHAPTER IV.
ADULTERY.
A NEW sufferer is introduced, the injared
husband, who receives a wound in his sensibility and
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atrections, the most painful and incurable that human
BdDre knows. In all other respects, adultery on
the part of the man who solicits the chastity of a
,1II3rried woman, includes the crime of seduction, and
-is attended with the same miscllief.
The infidelity of the woman is· aggravated bycrudy
to ber children, who are generally involved in
meir parents' shame, and always made unhappy by
their quarrel.
If it be said that these consequences ~!"e chargeable
DOt so much upon the crime, as the .covery, Wt:
answer, first, that the crime could not be discov ..
ered unless it were committed, and that the commission
is never secure from discovery; and secondly l'
that -if we excuse adulterous connexions_ whenever
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they can hope to escape detection, which is the conclusivn
to which this argument conducts us, we leave
the husband no ether security for his wife;s cha~titv.
than in her want of opportunity or temptation";
which would probably either deter men from marrying,
or render marriage a state of such jealousy
and alarm to the husband, as must end in the slavery
and confinement of the wife.
. The vow by which married persons mutually en·
pge their fidelity, is "witnessf:d before God," ard
accompained with circumstances of solemnity and .
.religion, which approach to the nature of an oath.
The manied offender therefcJre incurs a crime little
short of perjury, and the seduction of a married womaD
is little less than subornation of perj ury ;-.and
this guilt is independent of the discovery.
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