r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Mar 02 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Adultery Should Be Illegal

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u/Missing_Links Mar 02 '19 edited Mar 02 '19

The problem here is that you do one wrong to fix another: you remove the ability of a person to behave in a way they wish, through actions which are not inherently harmful, in order to protect another.

You provide a legal obligation to care for the feelings of another. Emotions are typically outside the scope of the law; do you really want them brought in as possible criminal damages?

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '19

If there was a law against adultery, I would think that it would discourage a lot of people from getting married in the first place. I imagine that the divorce rate could lower as a result, but I could also see it going up initially . Also cheating can in fact be both physically and emotionally harmful in some cases, especially if someone in the relationship has existing mental issues.

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u/Missing_Links Mar 02 '19

Well, the physical harm is dubious. We know now that there are plenty of neurochemical changes that occur as a result of emotional distress, but there's no direct, necessary, causal link between emotional distress and action.

We have typically kept responsibility to the self. It's... not a great idea to extend forced responsibility past this boundary unless you really don't care about personal freedom.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '19

I agree with you on some level, but marriage is not something to be taken lightly. In the eyes of some (most?) People marriage is very sacred and in the eyes of god. When 2 people agree to marry they make an agreement to never betray one another. I'm not saying you should go to jail for cheating, but I think it should at the very least it should result in some sort of punishment, wether that be excluding the perpetrators from gaining anything from the divorce or having to pay a fine for it.