Inchastity

In pre-Christian Roman belief it might be held as better not to indulge in extramarital sex, as a courtesy more than a due to one’s partner, or because character was believed to derive from having the strength to resist vice […] but, such rationalisations aside, male inchastity did not matter as such. Female inchastity could threaten bloodlines and property transfer, and so from the earliest times very much did matter: […] in fact, Chrysostom refutes in detail the legal position that only women’s inchastity signified in marriage, in a passage so full of reproach and repetition […] that we may infer that he too is meeting a dead weight of inertia, if not active opposition, from his hearers.

The relevant Qur’anic verse (Ayât) is very similar to the English law on slander per se and the imputation of inchastity for women.

Having found out about the wife’s inchastity, Geraldine does not need his father’s exhortations to stay away from Wincott’s house. […] He rebukes the wife for her inchastity – and she dies of shame, conveniently leaving a letter of confession.