Adultery
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
The voluntary sexual intercourse of a married person with a person other than the offender's husband or wife.
Bish. Mar. & Div. § 415; 6 Mete. (Mass.) 243; 36 Me. 261; 11 Ga. 56; 2 Strobh. Eq. (S. C.) 174.
The voluntary sexual intercourse of a married woman with a man other than her husband. In general, it is sufficient if either party is married; and the crime of the married party will be adultery, while that of the unmarried party will be fornication.
1 Yeates (Pa.) 6; 2 Dall. (Pa.) 124; 8 Jones (N. C.) 416; 27 Ala. (N. S.) 23; 35 Me. 205; 7 Grat. (Va.) 591; 6 Grat. (Va.) 673; 1 Pin. (Wis.) 91.
In some of the states, if the woman be married, though the man be unmarried, he is guilty of adultery.
21 Pick. (Mass.) 509; 2 Blackf. (Ind.) 318; 18 Ga. 264; 9 N. H. 515. And see 1 Harr. (N. J.) 380; 29 Ala. 313.
In other states, it seems that to constitute the offense of adultery it is necessary that the woman should be married; that if the man only is married, it is not the crime of adultery at common law or under the statute, so that an indictment for adultery could be sustained against either party; though, within the meaning of the law respecting divorces, it is adultery in the man.
56 Ind. 263; 9 N. H. 55; 4 Minn. 335; Tappan (Ohio) 90.