Book Review: Adultery: Infidelity and the Law
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663917740424b |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Author | Rebecca Probert |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
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different ethic alien to the logic of sovereign power and the capital. This volume, thus, is
an engaging read for those who are interested in understanding and resisting the archi-
tecture of power that pervades the biopolitical era.
GIAN GIACOMO FUSCO
University of Kent, UK
References
Agamben G (2011) The Kingdom and the Glory for a Theological Genealogy of Economy and
Government. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agamben G (2012) The Church and the Kingdom. Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Agamben G (2013) The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life. Stanford: Stanford
University Press. Available at: http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/
2012/02/16/se-la-feroce-religione-del-denaro-divora.html (accessed 13 February 2017).
DEBORAH L. RHODE, Adultery: Infidelity and the Law. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
2016, pp. 260, ISBN 978-0-674-65955 -1, £21.95 (hbk).
Adultery remains a crime in 21 US states, a potential ground for civil liability in a
number of others, and a factor in numerous courts-martial. The key argument of Deborah
Rhode’s readable and wide-ranging new book is that the law in these jurisdictions should
cease to attach such punitive consequences to infidelity. The justifications presented are
both domestic and global: Within the United States, she argues, there is the increased
respect for privacy that makes the law’s intrusion into sexual behaviour inappropriate,
while on the world stage, the need ‘to reform laws and social practices that impose a
sexual double standard and barbaric punishments’ means that the United States should
‘place its moral authority on the side of decriminalization’ (pp. 182–183).
To make this argument, Rhode begins by sketching out the history of the legal
prohibitions and penalties in both England and the United States and then moves to a
more detailed overview of the American legal landscape. Two further chapters are
devoted to the sexual shenanigans of those serving in the military or political life, while
another deals with what are billed as ‘alternative lifestyles’, such as swinging, polyamory
and polygamy, which explicitly reject monogamy. The final chapter provides interna-
tional perspectives, with a whistle-stop tour of the rest of the globe. This inevitably leads
to a somewhat broad-brush approach: adultery, we are told, is ‘common’ among Eur-
opean leaders. Prince Charles might be delighted to find himself included in the category
of ‘European leaders’, although puzzled by the reference to his desire ‘to live inside
Camilla’s trousers’ (p. 164).
One difficulty that presents itself in adopting such a wide...
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