The New York state Senate approved lawmakers’ repeal of a century-old law that makes adultery in the state a crime on Wednesday.
Initially passed in 1907, the goal of the law was to drive down the divorce rate. At the time, adultery was the only acceptable reason to grant a divorce in the state of New York, making the crime a misdemeanor and punishable by up to three months in jail.
The statute classifies adultery in the state as someone who “engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time when he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse.”
Last month, Democratic Assemblyman Charles Lavine proposed legislation to repeal it, which the Assembly overwhelmingly approved.
The law was mostly unenforced in recent decades, with just about 13 people charged for the crime since 1972, Read more…
