Before this Friday, November 22, 2024, residents of New York State risked going to prison if they cheated on their spouse, according to a law in effect since 1907. This law, little used, difficult to apply and considered obsolete for long time, was repealed this Friday. by the state governor, Kathy Hochul, reports the American news agency Associated Press.
“I have been fortunate to share a loving married life with my husband for 40 years – which makes it somewhat ironic for me to sign a bill decriminalizing adultery – but I know that people often have complex relationships,” she said. .
Before adding: “These issues clearly should be addressed by these people and not by our criminal justice system. Let’s get this ridiculous and outdated law off the books, once and for all.”
As in several other states in the country, this law that criminalizes adultery was intended to limit divorces. Because at the beginning of the 20th century, proving the spouse’s deception was the only legal way to obtain a divorce.
a dozen charges
For New York State, adultery is the act of a person “having sexual relations with another person while he or she has a living spouse or the other person has a living spouse.”
This 1907 law was first used a few weeks after it went into effect, according to a New York Times article: a married man and a 25-year-old woman were arrested.
According to the Associated Press, the law was last used in 2010 against a woman who was caught performing a sex act in a park, but the adultery charge was dropped in the process as part of a plea deal.
About a dozen people have been charged under the law since the 1970s, and five of those cases resulted in convictions, according to state Rep. Charles Lavine.
Source: BFM TV
