Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 3K views

    Inequality in Our Penal Law On Adultery and Concubinage

    Uploaded by

    Sandarah Kylah Dumam-ag
    1) The document discusses inequality in the Philippines' penal code regarding adultery and concubinage, which discriminates against women. For adultery, both the guilty wife and her paramour can be imprisoned up to 6 years, while for concubinage the maximum penalty for the guilty husband is only 4 years and 1 day. 2) Proving concubinage is difficult, forcing many wives to instead file psychological violence charges against their husbands. This highlights the imbalance in how easily adultery can be proven against wives. 3) The author argues these discriminatory provisions should be removed or revised to impose equal penalties regardless of gender and promote fairness and equality under the law.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Inequality in Our Penal Law On Adultery and Concubinage

    Uploaded by

    Sandarah Kylah Dumam-ag
    3K views3 pages
    1) The document discusses inequality in the Philippines' penal code regarding adultery and concubinage, which discriminates against women. For adultery, both the guilty wife and her paramour can be imprisoned up to 6 years, while for concubinage the maximum penalty for the guilty husband is only 4 years and 1 day. 2) Proving concubinage is difficult, forcing many wives to instead file psychological violence charges against their husbands. This highlights the imbalance in how easily adultery can be proven against wives. 3) The author argues these discriminatory provisions should be removed or revised to impose equal penalties regardless of gender and promote fairness and equality under the law.

    Original Description:

    DISS- GRADE 11 HUMSS

    Original Title

    POSITION PAPER

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    1) The document discusses inequality in the Philippines' penal code regarding adultery and concubinage, which discriminates against women. For adultery, both the guilty wife and her paramour can be imprisoned up to 6 years, while for concubinage the maximum penalty for the guilty husband is only 4 years and 1 day. 2) Proving concubinage is difficult, forcing many wives to instead file psychological violence charges against their husbands. This highlights the imbalance in how easily adultery can be proven against wives. 3) The author argues these discriminatory provisions should be removed or revised to impose equal penalties regardless of gender and promote fairness and equality under the law.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    3K views3 pages

    Inequality in Our Penal Law On Adultery and Concubinage

    Uploaded by

    Sandarah Kylah Dumam-ag
    1) The document discusses inequality in the Philippines' penal code regarding adultery and concubinage, which discriminates against women. For adultery, both the guilty wife and her paramour can be imprisoned up to 6 years, while for concubinage the maximum penalty for the guilty husband is only 4 years and 1 day. 2) Proving concubinage is difficult, forcing many wives to instead file psychological violence charges against their husbands. This highlights the imbalance in how easily adultery can be proven against wives. 3) The author argues these discriminatory provisions should be removed or revised to impose equal penalties regardless of gender and promote fairness and equality under the law.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Sandarah Kylah M.

    Dumam-ag
    Grade 11 HUMSS
    Discipline and Idea in the Social Sciences
    Module 9
    Practice Task 3
    POSITION PAPER

    INEQUALITY IN OUR PENAL LAW ON


    ADULTERY AND CONCUBINAGE

    Every day, in every country in the world, women are confronted by


    discrimination and inequality. They face violence, abuse and unequal treatment at
    home, community and even in their own marraiges. Men also experiences unjust
    treatment but there’s no doubt that women’s suffering from discrimination is far way
    horrible (not trying to invalidate men’s feeling though).

    Since we’re talking about inequality, I will might as well drop here the issue
    of Inequality in our penal law on adultery and concubinage. The disparity in the
    treatment of adultery and concubinage arises from gender biases in being more
    lenient or seemingly accepting the infidelity of men as normal, but more stringent on
    women who are expected to be faithful to her husband. These discriminatory
    provisions in the RPC should be removed or repealed. It is clearly promoting unfair
    justice for the wife that has been cheated on.

    Adultery and Concubinage are penalized under separate provisions in the


    Revised Penal Code (RPC) according to the sex of the offending spouse. These
    differences also affect the number of times that the offending spouse may be held
    liable for an extra-marital affair. In today’s society, knowing how keen for fair
    treatment the people are, this issue is still considered as a hot controversy. There
    are many cases like these out there and after learning its rule of judging, it
    completely broke me personally. This matter is a sexist one, obviously.
    Many people would see this as overreaching government control. Or some
    might also say that what I’m fighting for is a form of Female chauvinism. But to tell
    you this, this isn’t one of the likes. I hope everyone would finally open their eyes
    and choose equality.

    In adultery, the penalty is the same for both the guilty wife and her paramour
    which is imprisonment for a maximum period of 6 years but in concubinage, the
    penalty for the guilty husband is lower by one degree which is imprisonment for a
    maximum period of 4 years and 1 day only, while his concubine is given a separate
    punishment called distierro or exile. This kind of ruling is very alarming. It is
    unquestionably depriving women rights.

    Proving concubinage in court is difficult. You have first to look for several
    ways to consider if the husband is committing such thing:

    (a) by keeping a mistress in the conjugal dwelling.


    (b) by having sexual intercourse under scandalous circumstances with a woman
    who is not his wife; or
    (c) by cohabiting with his mistress in any other place.

    Due to the difficulties in filing and proving a concubinage case, the wife could
    only instead file a case of Pyschological Violence due to Marital Infidelity under RA
    9262. The penalty for psychological violence under RA 9262 is a minimum of 6
    years up to 12 years of imprisonment. The maximum penalty is imposed if the
    violence is committed by the husband or the intimate partner against the woman
    when she is pregnant or in the presence of their children.

    With the aforementioned above, we could really say that the discrimination
    against women in this system of ruling is very evident. While it’s very hard to make
    concubinage possible, filing adultery, on the other hand, is undoubtedly trouble-
    free. The husband only needs a proof of sexual intercourse that will suffice to file a
    case against her wife.
    Philippines' law criminalizes adultery and concubinage. Both are deemed
    “crimes against chastity” under the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines and are
    treated as sexual infidelity in the Family Code. The law discriminates against wives.
    The crime of adultery can be committed only by a wife and her paramour.

    This law work to the great disadvantage of women. There is no divorce in the
    Philippines and abandoned wives are often accused of adultery in order to force
    them to agree to their husband's petitions to nullify the marriage. The Philippine
    Commission on Women reports that, “In many cases, women who are faced by
    these threats are forced to forego legitimate custodial claims of their children while
    some are forced to give up their claims over conjugal properties, assets and the
    like.

    This law is also unfair to women because of the penalty system. The
    husband could only be imprisoned for 4 years and 1 day while the wife could be
    imprisoned for a maximum period of 6 years. If you would dig deeper into it, you will
    really envision how marred our justice system is. As what I have mentioned above,
    these discriminatory provisions in the RPC should be removed or repealed for it
    dispossess women rights and Equality for both Gender.

    In my own perspective, we could solve and make inequality vanish in this


    case by revising or changing the law. The punishment and ruling for these two
    cases must be the same with each other. Women should not be deprived same as
    Men. Afterall, both committed the same crime, the difference is only the Gender. Let
    us stop sexism and promote Gender equality.

    You might also like