Adultery in the context of "Lancelot"

Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality.

Notably, as of January 2025, 38 countries recognize same-sex marriage. By contrast, not counting non-state actors and extrajudicial killings, only two countries are believed to impose the death penalty on consensual same-sex sexual acts: Iran and Afghanistan. The death penalty is officially law, but generally not practiced, in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (in the autonomous state of Jubaland) and the United Arab Emirates. LGBTQ people also face extrajudicial killings in the Russian region of Chechnya. Sudan rescinded its unenforced death penalty for anal sex (hetero- or homosexual) in 2020. Fifteen countries have stoning on the books as a penalty for adultery, which (in light of the illegality of gay marriage in those countries) would by default include gay sex, but this is enforced by the legal authorities in Iran and Nigeria (in the northern third of the country).

The Montenegrin Orthodox Church (MOC; Montenegrin: Црногорска православна црква, ЦПЦ, romanized: Crnogorska pravoslavna crkva, CPC) is a canonically unrecognized Eastern Orthodox Church. Formed in 1993 and registered as a non-governmental organization, Antonije Abramović was appointed as its first metropolitan. In 2023, after some controversy, the current metropolitan, Boris Bojović, succeeded Miraš Dedeić in the role. It claims succession to an older autocephalous Montenegrin Church, which existed until the unification of the Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Montenegro, later to join the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918.

The Montenegrin Orthodox Church has been recognized as a religious organization by the Government of Montenegro since 2001. According to a 2020 poll conducted by CEDEM, approximately 10 percent of Montenegro's Eastern Orthodox Christians have opted for membership in the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, while approximately 90 percent have opted for or stayed with the Serbian Orthodox Church, in the canonical or widely-known Eastern Orthodox Church. Notably, the creation of the MOC has been opposed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Patriarch Bartholomew I has stated that "we will never give autocephaly to the so-called 'Montenegrin Orthodox Church'" and that its then-leader Dedeić was suspended by Constantinople for adultery and embezzlement.

Extramarital sex is sexual activity in which at least one sex partner is a married person and the partners are not married to each other. The term may be distinguished from premarital sex where neither partner is married.

Where extramarital sex does not breach a sexual norm, it may be referred to as consensual non-monogamy (see also polyamory). Where extramarital sex does breach a sexual norm, it may be referred to as adultery or non-monogamy (sexual acts between a married person and a person other than the legal spouse), fornication, bigamy, philandering, or infidelity. These varying terms imply both immoral or religious consequences, charged whether via civil law or religious law.

The toga (/ˈtoʊɡə/, Classical Latin: [ˈt̪ɔ.ɡa]), a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between 12 and 20 feet (3.7 and 6.1 m) in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tradition, it is said to have been the favored dress of Romulus, Rome's founder; it was also thought to have originally been worn by both sexes, and by the citizen-military. As Roman women gradually adopted the stola, the toga was recognized as formal wear for male Roman citizens. Women found guilty of adultery and women engaged in prostitution might have provided the main exceptions to this rule.

The type of toga worn reflected a citizen's rank in the civil hierarchy. Various laws and customs restricted its use to citizens, who were required to wear it for public festivals and civic duties.

Guinevere (/ˈɡwɪnəvɪər/ GWIN-ə-veer; Welsh: Gwenhwyfar pronunciation; Breton: Gwenivar, Cornish: Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous, and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. The variably told motif of abduction of Guinevere, or of her being rescued from some other peril, features recurrently and prominently in many versions of the legend.

The earliest datable appearance of Guinevere is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical British chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae, in which she is seduced by Mordred during his ill-fated rebellion against Arthur. In a later medieval Arthurian romance tradition from France, a major story arc is the queen's tragic love affair with her husband's best knight and trusted friend, Lancelot, indirectly causing the death of Arthur and the downfall of the kingdom. This concept had originally appeared in nascent form in Chrétien de Troyes's poem Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart prior to its vast expansion in the prose cycle Lancelot-Grail, consequently forming much of the narrative core of Thomas Malory's seminal English compilation Le Morte d'Arthur. Other themes found in Malory and other texts include Guinevere's usual barrenness, the scheme of Guinevere's evil twin to replace her, and the particular hostility displayed towards Guinevere by her sister-in-law Morgan.

Desdemona (/ˌdɛzdəˈmoʊnə/) is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a Moorish Venetian military prodigy. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the Republic of Venice, Desdemona accompanies him. There, her husband is manipulated by his ensign Iago into believing she is an adulteress, and, in the last act, she is murdered by her estranged spouse.

Monica (c. 332 – 387) was an early North African Christian saint and the mother of Augustine of Hippo. She is remembered and honored in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, albeit on different feast days, for her outstanding Christian virtues, particularly the suffering caused by her husband's adultery, and her prayerful life dedicated to the reformation of her son, who wrote extensively of her pious acts and life with her in his Confessions. Popular Christian legends recall Monica weeping every night for her son Augustine.