What? At Athens a husband catching his wife in adultery could murder her lover without consequence. Originally in Roman law the lynching of an adulterous man by the injured party was legal. The Athenian and Roman legal codes recognized adultery strictly speaking as only involving a married woman, but Roman law included parallel charges for sexual misconduct with unmarried women as well. I've never once heard of a legal code in which the male party to adultery was not punished either by public or private judgment. Punishment of the male party was, under most ancient legal codes, the more important--rendering justice on the women was seen as the role of the husband, through private means