Should adultery remain a crime or should the judiciary leave it alone? Representatives from several women’s rights groups discussed the issue at a forum in Taipei yesterday.
“The purpose of making adultery a crime is to protect the integrity of a family — but can a family still be harmonious after the married couple sues each other for adultery?” asked Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), a lawyer and a founding member of the Awakening Foundation, which organized the forum. “I believe that a marriage should be maintained through the love and trust of a couple, not through legal means.”
POINT OF VIEW
Yu went on to say that it may seem that viewing adultery as a crime could help to protect the one being betrayed in a relationship, but “it may actually hurt the victim.”
She explained that in practice, the accuser must gather enough evidence to prove a case of adultery, such as used condoms, videos or pictures.
“If you can’t catch them red-handed, the ‘victim’ trying to gather evidence may be sued for intrusion,” she said. “Even if you did have it on photo or on video, these may still not be admissible evidence if they were obtained illegally.”
The better way to handle adultery is to remove it from the Criminal Code (刑法) and let couples decide the fate of their marriage according to the Civil Code (民法), Yu told the forum.
Wang Ping (王蘋), secretary-general of the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association Taiwan, pointed out that decriminalizing adultery would better protect women’s right to have sex when they want it.
“It has happened before that a woman was sued by her husband for adultery after years of separation. They did not divorce because her husband would not sign the divorce agreement,” she said. “In such cases, a woman’s sexual rights are certainly compromised.”
USEFUL TOOL
On the other hand, though agreeing that adultery should not be a crime, Warm Life Association for Women chairwoman Chi Kuan-ling (紀冠伶) said that criminalized adultery is certainly a useful tool for “first wives.”
“As adultery is currently a crime, wives can ask for help from the police to learn of their husbands’ affairs,” Chi said. “Under current laws, it would be easier for a woman who wants a divorce to file a successful divorce lawsuit if she can obtain actual evidence of her husband’s adultery.”
Yu acknowledged that the situation could be an issue.
“That’s why I believe that the process concerning divorce in the Civil Code should be loosened — instead of requiring one side to raise evidence of adultery for a divorce lawsuit, it should be sufficient for a divorce to become valid after certain years of separation,” Yu said.
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