ho had
brutally ill-used her, then a very considerable section of the civilized
community would actually transfer their sympathies to the offending
couple and look upon the husband as the real offender.

This is why the vestigial relics of the ancient ecclesiastical view of
adultery as a "crime" are no longer supported by public opinion;[192] they
are no longer enforced, or else the penalty is reduced to ridiculous
dimensions (as in France, where a fine of a few francs may be imposed),
and there is a general inclination to abolish them altogether. Penalties
for adultery are not nowadays enacted afresh, except in the United
States, where medieval regulations are enabled to survive through the
strength of the Puritan tradition. Thus in the State of New York a law
was passed in 1907 rendering any person guilty of adultery punishable by
six months' imprisonment, or a heavy fine, or both. The law was largely
due to agitation by the National Christian League for the Promotion of
Purity; it was supposed the law would act to prevent adultery. Less than
three months after the Act became law, lawyers reached the conclusion
that it was a dead letter. During the two years after its enactment,
notwithstanding the large number of divorces, only three persons were
sent to prison, for a few days, under this Act, and only four fined a
small sum. The Committee of Fourteen state that it is "of practically no
effect," and add: "The preventive values of this statute cannot be
determined, but, judging from the prosecutions, it has proved an
ineffective weapon against immorality, and has practically no effect
upon commercialized vice."[193] When such laws remain on the Statute Book
as relics of practically medieval days they deserve a certain respect,
even if it is impossible to enforce them; to re-enact them in modern
times is a gratuitous method of bringing law into contempt.

It is clear that all such cases affecting morals are not only altered by
circumstances, and by consideration of the psychic state of the
individual, but that in regard to them different sections of the
community hold widely different views. The sanctions of the criminal law
to be firm and unshakeable must be capable of literal interpretation
and of unfailing execution, and in that interpretation and execution be
accepted as just by the whole community. But as soon as law enters the
sphere of morals this becomes impossible; law loses all its certainty
and all the reve