Guilty women were often expelled from their homes, their dowries were confiscated by their husbands, or, heads shaven, they were forced to parade through the streets. The courts were also hesitant to punish men who murdered their wives' lovers (Brundage, "Sex and Canon Law," 42).
Wives who committed adultery were severely punished or even be put to death, by the state or by their husbands. Female adultery was perceived as a greater threat to society and to families.
Historically, many cultures considered adultery a very serious crime, some subject to severe punishment, usually for the woman and sometimes for the man, with penalties including capital punishment, mutilation, or torture.
A common punishment for adulterous women – whipping, head shaving, and parading the adulteress through the streets resembles the entry procedure before enclosure. The husband could take her back or leave her perpetually enclosed.
Later medieval England
In time, however, adultery came exclusively to be a concern of the Church courts, and was not a crime at common law.
From at least the first half of the fourteenth century, and probably from the thirteenth century, the accepted punishment for a wife who killed her husband was death by burning.
Those suspected of heresy and other religious crimes received the severest punishment of all: being burned at the stake. This not only meant a gruesome death, but no less terrible was the fact that due to the total destruction of one's body, one could no longer hope to undergo resurrection.
While adultery was not quite as common as simple fornication, it too seems to have been relatively widespread. It was so common in fact that by the later Middle Ages it was not even considered grounds for the dissolution of marriage (Brundage, 455).
Although cheating will not automatically result in one spouse getting a better divorce settlement than the other, it can certainly be factored into negotiating the division of marital assets.
Leviticus 20:10 threatened that 'the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife … the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death', while Deuteronomy 22:22 thundered, if a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then both of them shall die'.
Adultery is not a crime in Australia. Under federal law enacted in 1994, sexual conduct between consenting adults (18 years of age or older) is their private matter throughout Australia, irrespective of marital status. Australian states and territories had previously repealed their respective adultery criminal laws.
Jesus forgives all sin
The Bible teaches that the blood Jesus' shed on the cross covers all sin, including infidelity. “… the blood of Jesus, God's Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). This means that any sin we commit, including infidelity, can be forgiven when we come to Jesus with a repentant heart.
The punishment for committing adultery may extend up to imprisonment for five years, or with fine, or both.
Romance isn't dead, but it might be nine centuries old, according to an Oxford University academic. Laura Ashe, Associate Professor of English at Worcester College and the Faculty of English has described the invention of romantic love in the literature of the Middle Ages.
In the middle ages, girls were typically in their teens when they married, and boys were in their early twenties.
Peasant women had many domestic responsibilities, including caring for children, preparing food, and tending livestock. During the busiest times of the year, such as the harvest, women often joined their husbands in the field to bring in the crops.
Infidelity can have lasting impacts on partners and children the couple may have. Grief, brain changes, behaviors down the road, and mental health conditions such as anxiety, chronic stress, and depression can result. Some families have been able to move past infidelity with time and therapy.
Statistics show that only 31% of marriages last after the affair has been discovered or admitted to. People who are unfaithful to their partners regret causing their loved one so much pain and heartache. Even if the couple decides to stay together, it's very hard for them to have a trust-based, happy relationship.
An icy attitude is a telltale sign of a cheating wife. She won't want to connect on any level and doesn't smile anymore when around you. A cheating wife avoids talking to you, touching you, or even being in the same room as you. Ask her out for coffee and see where the conversation goes.
Virgins were thought to be the most susceptible to temptation and sin, never having experienced sexual relations. They were to be kept secluded with their activities highly curtailed in order to protect them from being temped or from tempting celibate men.
The 2012 Harvard cheating scandal involved approximately 125 Harvard University students who were investigated for cheating on the take-home final examination of the spring 2012 edition of Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress".
Homicide, rape and domestic violence could be found across the social spectrum. However, some kinds of violence were more common in certain milieux. Violent theft was most often perpetrated by people on the economic margins of society, who stole out of desperation.
Punishment options included imprisonment, payment of fines or forfeiture of estate, and various corporal sanctions including whipping, stocks, pillory, branding or the removal of a body part such as a hand or foot, or capital punishment, normally by hanging, though certain crimes were punished by burning.
Throughout the medieval period, it was believed that the only way to keep order was to make sure that the people were scared of the punishments given for crimes committed. For this reason, all crimes from stealing to burglary of houses to murder had harsh medieval punishments.