Cheating on your spouse is no longer a crime in New York
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill repealing the state's 117-year-old adultery law on Friday.
You used to have to prove adultery in order to get a divorce in New York state.
Family story time! My great-grandparents wanted to get divorced and were in New York, so my grandfather lay in a bed next to his mother-in-law under the covers and my grandmother took a photo to present to the courts. My great-grandmother apparently never even took off her coat.
That's hilarious and somehow wholesome that everyone pitched in to get the separation
Woot to all the people that were horny but it was the legal system stopping them from cheating on their spouse.
Great now make it so if you cheat you lose the ability to get alimony.
And an open relationship is different then cheating.
Honestly, I think it’s high time we ditch old marriage laws in favor of much more individualized marriage contracts that are settled in civil court if they’re dissolved. Modern marriages are much more complex than traditional ones and our antiquated laws don’t deal with them well. We’d have to update laws/policies about hospital visiting, medical decisions, inheritance, etc, as well, but I think it would be worth it.
I was in favor of individual contracts for most of my life.
But there's an issue - with individual contracts there's a greater degree of uncertainty every time someone goes to court over them.
It's the same as with individual contracts in other areas. Say, labor.
Power balance matters.
So - ideally yes, but in our real world with our real legal and enforcement systems - we may not be able to. Same as with labor, again.
So reading a 200+ page EULA before saying I do, got it.
Yes absolutely this.
Cheating should not be a crime you go to jail for.
But it should have consequences.
I think a good way to go is a law that unless there is a prenup that specifically deals with cheating, and unless it was an agreed to open relationship or there was otherwise permission to cheat, a cheater is ineligible for alimony and must be considered morally suspect for the question of child custody.
Consider the following (IMO common) scenario: One spouse is abusive and does not care about the children. Maybe it’s a malignant narcissist and their family is like property for them.
The other spouse cares about the children and may be the only one doing any real parenting. Also they suffer the loveless, abusive marriage. At some point they meet someone that cares for them and somehow that leads to cheating before they can escape the marriage.
In this scenario the children should stay with the cheater and the alimony should not be depending on who cheated. (Both IMO of course).
that's the opposite of the point of these laws. the entire point of this and no fault divorce is that the state shouldn't dictate relationships. how are you going to adjudicate cheating anyway?
How?
If person a is shown to have been cheating then person a loses any claim to alimony.
Pretty simple.
Person A in divorce court “judge I want alimony”
Person B in divorce court “your honor Person A was cheating here’s the proof”
Judge “ no alimony will be awarded from Person B to Person A”
Why should anyone be allowed to get alimony after cheating? That’s just insult to injury.
Your spouse cheats you walk in on it and now you want a divorce. Added bonus you have to pay money to the cheater for life???
How does that make sense?
It should literally be law that the alimony goes away at that point.
Even Canada doesn't have that implemented, I wouldn't count on that any time soon. In Canada, your wife could cut off your finger and cheat on you then file for divorce, then you'd have to give her half of your house (even if it was your childhood home you fully owned long before your marriage) and pay her alimony if you make more than her. Also if you have kids, she's very likely going to win custody of them.
It's a bit fucked up lol
In some states in the United States, if you get a divorce, they go back to birth so for example, a child home would be split up. But in most states, they only go back to the date of marriage. I will say : I’ll never get married ever. But if I was dumb enough to do it, I would absolutely never get married in a state that (during a divorce) went back to birth. And I would never live in that state (while married) either. What’s mine before the marriage is mine what is hers before the marriage is hers.
No one should be able to claim the ability to take something before the marriage ever existed. That’s just my opinion.
And yeah, I doubt it would ever get implemented.
People who are so concerned about that possibility can just require their prospective spouse to sign a prenup with conditions like that on alimony, as a condition of getting married.
There are a number of states where the prenup is all but worthless.
I do wonder the legal definition used here. I hope the law doesn't consider it cheating if you tell them about it first, regardless of if they say yes
Fuck me finally. It was a the only thing keeping me a chronic virgin.
Talking like a the famous plumber doesn't help either
I'm just waiting on incoming news about Hochul cheating on her husband.
But can you legally marry multiple people
I hadn't seen any Marx Bros in so long, I was thinking of a different Captain Spaulding and was wondering why I don't remember this quote. lol
Good, no one needs to go to jail unless someone's hurt
And not just their feelings
Correct
I mean, fair, but doesn't really seem like something worth the effort one direction or the other, doubt that law was being enforced much.
We should reduce as much as possible laws that make something illegal but aren't enforced. It creates uncertainty about your position and allows authorities to threaten citizens for unrelated reasons.
Nah, fuck that. If a law isn't enforced it shouldn't be a law. Things being illegal because it's "too much effort" to make it legal is bullshit.
Criminal Court? 👎 Civil Court? 👍
Quite literally what civil court was made for
It kinda should be IMO. If you can't not be faithful, don't fucking get married and be a cheating piece of shit.
It shouldn't be enforced by the state
Do you not see the issues with having the state enforce that?
You won't get a lot of argument that cheating is a shitty thing to do but the government doesn't need to be involved in peoples relationships.
yeah great idea. criminalise everything. had your freedom to the state. the american dream
I’ve been cheated on and divorced. My ex was seeing a divorce lawyer lol. That was some fun times with depositions and constant harassment since they had 24/7 legal access.
Even with all that said, I don’t think cheating should ever be criminalized. Just gotta be careful who you marry or date. I still have never learned my lesson lol.
Yeah, Anyone who thinks cheating should be a crime isn't emotionally mature enough to be in a relationship in my opinion. It's a horrible thing to cheat on someone, but laws aren't for hurt feelings.
Every couple that wants the legal rights grants by marriage must be monogamous whether they want to or not, because it gives you feelings that you are unwilling to process when confronted by committed but nonmonogamous relationships?