Why adultery should be a fineable offence.
It may seem strange at first read, but I believe one can make a strong case for making adultery a fineable offence with a few caveats.
Imagine if adultery were a fineable offence with the fine doubling for each repeat offence but the police being prohibited from spying on someone to catch him in the act and needing two reliable witnesses or equivalent (the courts determining what can be accepted as equivalent) to lay a fine.
Due to the caveats in place, a person would not need to worry about being fined for having had consentual sex with his legal-aged girlfriend in the privacy of his bedroom, but such a law could help curtail criminal activity. For example, should the police fail to prove that a man raped a woman who reported him, they could at least fine him with adultery.
Should the same man face repeated accusations yet each time escape due to lack of evidence of rape (maybe a conspiracy against him, just unlucky, rubs women the wrong way, or something else), but sufficient evidence of adultery, at least he could be fined an ever greater fine each time to smarten him up to keep out of further trouble.
Likewise in the case of prostitution. Not only must the police prove an exchange of sex and an exchange of money between the same two people, but also that the two exchanges are directly related, a very difficult act to prove. The plus side with adultery is that the police need only prove an exchange of sex and nothing else.
It may seem strange at first read, but I believe one can make a strong case for making adultery a fineable offence with a few caveats.
Imagine if adultery were a fineable offence with the fine doubling for each repeat offence but the police being prohibited from spying on someone to catch him in the act and needing two reliable witnesses or equivalent (the courts determining what can be accepted as equivalent) to lay a fine.
Due to the caveats in place, a person would not need to worry about being fined for having had consentual sex with his legal-aged girlfriend in the privacy of his bedroom, but such a law could help curtail criminal activity. For example, should the police fail to prove that a man raped a woman who reported him, they could at least fine him with adultery.
Should the same man face repeated accusations yet each time escape due to lack of evidence of rape (maybe a conspiracy against him, just unlucky, rubs women the wrong way, or something else), but sufficient evidence of adultery, at least he could be fined an ever greater fine each time to smarten him up to keep out of further trouble.
Likewise in the case of prostitution. Not only must the police prove an exchange of sex and an exchange of money between the same two people, but also that the two exchanges are directly related, a very difficult act to prove. The plus side with adultery is that the police need only prove an exchange of sex and nothing else.