How you ask a question often influences what the answer will be. The Ministry of Justice has released the results of an opinion poll that showed that more than 80 percent of respondents oppose removing adultery from the Criminal Code. This is a far cry from the results of similar polls on the subject carried out by media outlets and academic institutions, and the key to these differences lies in how the questions are phrased.
Throughout the questionnaire, the ministry refuses to mention the negative practical consequences to women of keeping adultery in the Criminal Code. It also fails to mention the reality that doing so will not save, but rather speed up the dissolution of marriages. Instead, the questionnaire ignores social context, plays word games and asks obviously leading questions.
For example, the questionnaire mixes up the concepts of removing adultery from the Criminal Code with removing penalties for adultery, intentionally blurring Criminal Code, Civil Code and moral concepts, and using specious terminology and phrases without explaining in detail that “abolishing adultery” means to remove it from the Criminal Code; it would still be possible to demand compensation and sue for divorce under the Civil Code.
Removing adultery from the Criminal Code means to stop issuing penalties for adultery based on the Criminal Code; it is not a suggestion that adultery should have no consequences, either morally or under the Civil Code. Given the biased language of the ministry’s questionnaire, it is not surprising that respondents overwhelmingly felt that decriminalization implied allowing or even endorsing adultery.
Such a leadingly framed poll is unhelpful and even directly harmful to the deliberation of the issue by society.
The Awakening Foundation has held forums in Taipei, Greater Kaohsiung, Greater Taichung and in Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, where it found that many people oppose removing adultery from the Criminal Code because they have not had an opportunity to give more in-depth consideration to the complex power relationships and gender equality issues that often lie behind adultery.
After detailed explanation and discussion, many people who originally questioned the measure to remove adulterty from the Criminal Code changed their minds and agreed to sign a petition proposed by the foundation. Many people at the forums shared their own experiences and told of how they had been cheated by private investigators. The sums they had lost and the manner in which they had been cheated made many of the participants curse private investigators for making money off of other people’s misfortune.
The questionnaires completed during the meetings showed that more than 80 percent of respondents supported striking adultery from the Criminal Code, and they urged the foundation to push for reform of the law as soon as possible.
The ministry’s questionnaire stressed the deterrent posed by the offense of adultery, saying that keeping adultery in the Criminal Code deters people from having extramarital affairs and that it was the only thing that maintained social moral standards. Not only is this claim completely detached from the experiences of the general public, it also runs counter to the views of many legal experts.
The campaign started by the Awakening Foundation to remove adultery from the Criminal Code has been supported by many legal academics. Experts on the Criminal Code, including Huang Jung-chien (黃榮堅) and Hsu Yu-hsiu (許玉秀), both law professors at National Taiwan University, point out that the existence of adultery in the Criminal Code does nothing to help save marriages.
When charging someone with adultery under the Criminal Code, details of the adultery must be provided that satisfy Criminal Code evidence requirements, or a CD or DVD recording of the adultery must be provided. This only serves to further fuel animosity and distrust.
Private investigators charge high fees and then take advantage of the Criminal Code to extort money from the other party, without mentioning that their client could be charged with violating privacy laws, which can result in up to three years’ imprisonment, a harsher punishment than the maximum one year imprisonment for adultery.
When addressing the issue of decriminalizing adultery, the ministry can no longer avoid the issue by saying that it is neutral. If the Cabinet wants to use this one opinion poll to endorse the government’s position and ignore the fact that the offense of adultery has had practical negative consequences for women and for the institution of marriage, it will only serve to once again show that the sincerity of this Cabinet, which Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) calls a “communicative Cabinet,” continues to plummet to new depths.
The ministry must stop playing devil’s advocate, pretending to be neutral while using underhand means to mislead the public. Instead, it should provide information to let the public deliberate the issue and take into consideration the claims from legal academic circles, human rights and women’s organizations that designating adultery as an offense creates gender inequality and will not guarantee the continuation of a marriage.
It should give serious thought to striking Article 239 and the offense of adultery from the Criminal Code.
Lin Shih-fang is secretary-general of the Awakening Foundation and a lawyer. Lin Shiou-yi is director of the development division at the Awakening Foundation.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US