The origin and development of the moral ideas

In its condemnation of adultery Christianity made no distinction between husband and wife.217 If continence is a stringent duty for unmarried persons independently of their sex, the observance of the sacred marriage vow must be so in a still higher degree. But here again there is a considerable discrepancy between the actual feelings of Christian peoples and the standard of their religion. Even in the laws of various European countries relating to divorce or judicial separation we find an echo of the popular notion that adultery is a smaller offence in a husband than in a wife.218

The judgment pronounced upon an unfaithful husband is of course influenced by the opinion about extra-matrimonial connections in general. Where it is considered wrong for a man to have intercourse with either an unmarried woman or another man’s wife, adultery in a husband is eo ipso condemned. But whether, or how far, infidelity on his part is stigmatised as an offence against his wife, chiefly depends upon the degree of regard which is paid to the feelings of women. That a married man generally enjoys more liberty than a married woman is largely due to the same causes as make him the more privileged partner in other respects; but there are also special reasons for this inequality between the sexes. It was a doctrine of the Roman jurists that adultery is a crime in the wife, and in the wife only, on account of the danger of introducing strange children to the husband.219 Moreover, the temptation to infidelity and the facility in indulging in it are commonly greater in the case of the husband than in that of the wife; and, as we have often noticed before, actual practice is always apt to influence moral opinion. And a still more important reason for the inequality in question is undoubtedly the general notion that unchastity of any kind is more discreditable for a woman than for a man.