Adultery Is Still Illegal In MIssissippi [View All]

[discocrisco01]

The Mississippi Code of 1972 states

SEC. 97-29-1. Adultery and fornication; unlawful cohabitation.

If any man and woman shall unlawfully cohabit, whether in adultery or fornication, they shall be fined in any sum not more than five hundred dollars each, and imprisoned in the county jail not more than six months; and it shall not be necessary, to constitute the offense, that the parties shall dwell together publicly as husband and wife, but it may be proved by circumstances which show habitual sexual intercourse.


SOURCES: Codes, Hutchinson's 1848, ch. 64, art. 1(58); 1857, ch. 64, art. 8; 1871, Sec. 2486; 1880, Sec. 2700; 1892, Sec. 953; 1906, Sec. 1029; Hemingway's 1917, Sec. 754; 1930, Sec. 772; 1942, Sec. 1998.

My question: I have no clue why this law in still on the books there. I know these laws, even in Mississippi, are never enforced but why not scrap them for good. They are a reminder of a harsh morality of a prior age where the court judged for your conduct in the bedroom.