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Fornication

[fawr-ni-key-shuhn]

Fornication, or simple fornication, is a term which refers to voluntary sexual intercourse between persons not married to each other.

The origin of the word derives from Latin. The word fornix means "an archway" or "vault" (in Rome, prostitutes could be solicited there). More directly, fornicatio means "done in the archway"; thus a euphemism for prostitution.

Fornication is dealt with differently in various religions, societies and cultures.

Religions

For a broad overview, see Religion and sexuality.

Laws

The laws on fornication have historically been tied with religion and the legal and political traditions within the particular jurisdiction. In the common law countries (England, USA, Canada, Australia, etc.), the Courts were never interested in punishing subjects for purely private moral deviations - even incest - although sodomy was an exception. What laws did exist were purely statutory. In many other countries, however, there have been attempts to secularize constitutions, and laws differ greatly from country to country. Most Western countries and some secular Muslim countries like Turkey and Azerbaijan have no laws against fornication if both parties are above the age of consent.

Jurisdictions within the United States of America

Premarital sexual relations were viewed as a matter of private morality, and, as such, were never viewed as criminal offenses against the common law. This legal position was inherited by the United States from England. Later, some jurisdictions, a total of 16 in the Southern and Eastern United States, as well as the State of Wisconsin, passed statutes creating the offense of "fornication" that prohibited (vaginal) sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons of the opposite sex. Most of these laws either were repealed, were not enforced, or were struck down by the courts in several States as being odious to their state Constitutions. See also State v. Saunders, 381 A.2d 333 (N.J. 1977), Martin v. Ziherl, 607 S.E.2d 367 (Va. 2005).

With respect to sexual relations between persons of the same sex, such acts may be prohibited under criminal laws defining the offense of "sodomy," rather than the laws defining the offense of "fornication." The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) rendered the states' remaining laws related to "sodomy" unconstitutional. Lawrence v. Texas is also presumed by many to invalidate laws prohibiting fornication, as the decision declared sodomy laws unconstitutional due to the interference of such laws with private, consensual, non-commercial intimate relations between unrelated adults, and therefore are odious to the rights of liberty and privacy, such rights being retained by the people of the United States. However, because Lawrence explicitly declared sodomy laws unconstitutional, some states continue to enforce laws prohibiting fornication.

In Utah, any unmarried person who voluntarily engages in sexual intercourse with another is guilty of fornication, which is a class B misdemeanor.

In recent years, premarital sex has become a politically divisive issue in the United States, The debate about abstinence-only sex education has brought the issue of premarital sex to the forefront of what conservative politicians call the "Culture Wars."