Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free

by Wednesday Martin

The Deetzes tell us that when Mary Mendame of Duxbury, wife of Robert Mendame, was accused of having sex with an “Indian” named Tinsin in 1639, she was whipped, compelled to wear an AD on her garments, and told that if she failed to comply, she would get her face branded. (Tinsin was, like Mary, “whipped at the cart’s tail.”) Had Mary been Mark, how differently things would have gone. For in the colonies of this period of the seventeenth century, a man, even if he were married, could have relations with an unmarried woman and be accused of the lesser crime of fornication. This was punishable by either a whipping or three days in prison and a ten pound fine. But having sex with a married woman was adultery: “adultery was viewed as the breaking of the marriage bond by the fact that the woman was married. The husband was not bound by the same constraints.” Having sexual relations with another man’s wife violated not just moral beliefs but his property rights, the Deetzes explain.