Paul Otto Neumann was raised on a farm in Thorsby, Alberta, where he developed a strong connection to rural life and community values.In every other area of life, contracts matter. When a contractor breaches an agreement, there are penalties. When a business partner violates fiduciary duties, there are consequences. When someone commits fraud in a commercial relationship, the law intervenes.Yet when a spouse violates the core promise of marriage: sexual exclusivity, the law shrugs.We call marriage a sacred covenant, a legal contract, and the foundation of society. It carries tax implications, inheritance rights, pension entitlements, immigration privileges, and automatic next-of-kin status. The state recognizes marriage as one of the most significant legal arrangements two people can enter into.But when the most fundamental term of that contract is broken, the breach carries virtually no legal weight.Why?For decades, adultery was removed from criminal codes in the name of privacy and modernity. The argument was that the state should not regulate private morality. Yet the state regulates private conduct constantly when that conduct creates harm. Fraud, misrepresentation, emotional abuse, coercive control: these are all matters the law increasingly recognizes, because they produce real, measurable damage.Adultery does the same.It destabilizes families. It fractures households. It can impose financial harm, psychological trauma, and long-term emotional damage: not only on spouses, but on children. In many divorces, infidelity is the catalyst that dismantles a family's economic and emotional security..We penalize breach of contract in business because trust underpins commerce. Why do we not treat the deliberate betrayal of marital trust with comparable seriousness?Critics will argue that criminalizing adultery invites state intrusion into the bedroom. But marriage is not merely a bedroom arrangement. It is a publicly recognized legal institution with defined rights and obligations. If the state grants privileges based on the exclusivity of that bond, it is not unreasonable to ask whether the state should also enforce its violation.Let's be honest: the state is already in the bedroom, whether it admits it or not. Marriage licences. Divorce courts. Custody rulings. Spousal support. Tax benefits. Immigration sponsorship. Pension transfers. Common-law definitions. Even the criminalization of certain intimate acts in past decades. The government has never been neutral about sex. It simply chooses which forms of intimacy it recognizes, rewards, regulates, or penalizes.When critics argue that criminalizing adultery would represent an unprecedented intrusion into private life, the claim, to me, rings hollow. The state already confers legal status on sexual exclusivity through marriage. It already distributes rights and privileges based on that exclusivity. It already adjudicates disputes when those intimate commitments collapse.What it does not do is treat the deliberate breach of those commitments as legally meaningful.Others will argue that enforcement would be impractical. But the difficulty of enforcement has never been a sufficient reason to abandon principle. Laws against insider trading, conspiracy, or fraud are complex to prove, yet they exist because society recognizes the gravity of betrayal in fiduciary relationships.At a minimum, we should reopen the discussion.Should intentional adultery, proven, deliberate, and destructive, carry legal consequences beyond divorce? Should it trigger civil penalties? Should it meaningfully affect property division? Should it be treated as a serious breach rather than a private inconvenience?.I argue that yes, it should.Modern no-fault divorce regimes were designed to reduce bitterness and streamline court proceedings. In many respects, they have wildly succeeded. However, in removing fault from consideration almost entirely, we may have overcorrected.If one spouse willfully violates the core term of marriage: fidelity, and that betrayal directly causes the breakdown of the union, why should the law treat both parties as equally responsible? Why should the spouse who upheld their vows bear identical financial consequences to the spouse who shattered them?In virtually every other legal context, intentional breach matters. Courts distinguish between accidental harm and deliberate misconduct. They differentiate negligence from willful wrongdoing. Yet in family law, the intentional destruction of a marriage is often treated as legally irrelevant.That disconnect troubles more and more people.No man or woman should be compelled to provide ongoing financial support to a spouse who knowingly and deliberately dismantled the very contract that created that obligation, at least not without the court having the ability to weigh that conduct meaningfully. Likewise, it is difficult to justify a system in which a spouse who obliterates the marital bond may still reap full post-marital financial benefit, as though the breakdown were mutual or accidental.This is not about vindictiveness. It is about accountability.Child support, of course, exists for the benefit of the child and must remain focused on the child's welfare. But spousal support and property division raise entirely different questions. If marriage is a legal contract grounded in mutual obligations, then a material breach of its central term should not be invisible under the law..Recognizing intentional adultery as legally relevant would not mean moral policing. It would mean acknowledging that actions have consequences, especially when those actions dismantle families and impose measurable financial and emotional harm.A system that refuses to distinguish between betrayal and loyalty risks sending the message that vows are simply symbolic, not binding.If marriage is to remain a meaningful institution, then its breach, when proven, deliberate, and destructive, should carry more weight than a procedural footnote.If marriage is to remain a meaningful institution, its promises must carry weight.A contract without consequence is not a contract at all. It is a suggestion.And if we continue to treat adultery as legally irrelevant, we send a clear message: the vows we publicly celebrate are socially symbolic, but legally hollow.Perhaps it is time to ask whether that is the society we truly want.Paul Otto Neumann was raised on a farm in Thorsby, Alberta, where he developed a strong connection to rural life and community values. He has been actively engaged in Alberta politics since his high school years, volunteering with the Wildrose Party and later the United Conservative Party. In recent years, he joined the Alberta Prosperity Project, continuing his commitment to civic involvement and public discourse. He resides with his wife in Ponoka, Alberta.
