CRIME AND SIN
SIR,—Monica Furlong, in her article 'Crime and Canterbury,' soft-pedals Dr. Fisher's recent remarks on adultery by saying that he suggested tentatively 'that the State might do worse than take a long cool look at adultery, since in most cases it inflicted as much suffering on other people as other acts classi- fied as crimes. . . .' But to suggest that the State take a 'long cool look' at anything implies that it should do so with a view to introducing legislation —and this, no more, was the substance of the press reports of Dr. Fisher's speech.
If adultery were to be made a criminal offence, it seems fairly clear that it would increase suffering rather than prevent it; many children can be kept in ignorance of the adultery of a parent, but this would be impossible if their parents' misdeeds were reported in the press.
To say, as Miss Furlong does, that a law against adultery could never be enforced is just too optimis- tic; not universally enforced perhaps, but enforced here and there in the same way as the law against homosexuality—and it might be remembered that when the Wolfenden Committee's long, cool look on that question was debated in the House of Com- mons the debate was long but far from cool.—Yours faithfully,
EVELYN SEYMER
Coleraines. Little Baddow, Chelmsford, Essex
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