Talk:Adultery in literature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I was considering adding Othello to this... does anyone agree? No adultery occurs but it sure is dicussed a lot, and, of course, Othello thinks it has occurred throughout most of the story. Tokerboy
- What about adding the above comment as well? KF 15:56 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)
- The comment on The Country Wife says "The characters treat adultery as a game, the object being to commit as much of it as possible without losing ones reputation, and while preventing one's spouse from committing any." And in the list of works, The Country Wife is marked with "M,F", for male and female adulterers, with the addition "in fact pretty much every character in the play". I know that that description represents a common perception of what goes on in the play — everybody married, everybody fucking like rabbits — and I hope nobody minds, but I'm going to change it, because it's not true. An adulterer is a married person who has sex outside marriage. Well, four people out of the very large cast of The Country Wife fit that description, and they're all women. Since Horner is an unmarried and uncommitted male, he commits not adultery but fornication (with the four of them). Male adultery not only doesn't happen in the play, it isn't even an issue, and no spouses try to prevent it. For an account of what the goals of the characters are, please see my recent update of The Country Wife (it was a 1911 EB text dump before).--Bishonen 16:26, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)
