ABSTRACT
Adultery was a threat to, and a drama within, the ordered household. Turning to the Patriarchal Court, wives did express their wish to live apart from their husbands, but only a few of them initiated criminal proceedings against their husbands on the grounds of adultery alone. Adultery reflected failed conjugality, feeble household rule and the collapse of the household economy in very direct ways; equally, it raised questions about male honour, gender hierarchy and, more broadly, social and political order. When husbands abused their authority they threatened conjugality, domestic harmony and, finally, household order and neighbourhood peace. Sexual prowess, so central to early modern notions of a legally valid marriage was an issue indirectly addressed in adultery suits as well as one that carried emotional, social, cultural and, finally, legal weight. In the most drastic way, it testified to the loss of ownership over a wife.
