medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> But you might not know whether the person you were fornicating with was
> married or not - thus you might commit adultery unconsciously - surely the
> meaning of the definitition.
Haven't we all missed the point ? As I understand it, adultery involves
breaking a vow, fornication does not. If you are married, you have vowed to
God that you will be faithful to your spouse; if you are in any sort of
Major Holy Orders or are a Religious, you have vowed to God to remain
celibate. Thus if in this condition you have sex with someone other than
your spouse (if married) or with anyone at all (if vowed to celibacy) then
you are an adulterer. If you simply have sex with another person and both
of you are free from restraining vows, then you have committed fornication.
In this way I suppose that the same act could be described as either
adultery or fornication depending which person was being accused and what
their station in life was. Does anyone have a problem with this ?
It would certainly explain why an unmarried parish priest was accused of
adultery - he was breaking his vow of celibacy.
Brenda M.C.
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