Board Thread:Rewatching "Merlin" - Season Four/@comment-5102537-20140111151000/@comment-5674726-20140114010102

Fimber wrote: As for the law about adultery, I doubt that it was Uther's law and invention only. The show managed to present Uther as an almost almighty dictator who had the most ridiculous and cruelest laws whereas the kings before him and the kings of other kingdoms obviously were fluffy and friendly little people in whose kingdoms almost everything was allowed and liberal, regardless that we were proven otherwise in the previous episodes. The tradition of punishing adultery surely was as old as the line of kings were and it surely didn't apply to Camelot only.

There was a logical basis for the laws against adultery. In the days before DNA tests there was an element of trust involved for any man when it came to the paternity of the children his wife bore. For a King, the succession is an added concern. Imagine if Guinevere really had had an affair with Lancelot and conceived a child by him, passing it off as Arthur's get. The throne would end up passing out of the Pendragon line and Guinevere and Lancelot's bastard would be King.

Guinevere being caught in the act with Lancelot should have been the end of any hope of her being accepted as Queen because, having been caught once, she would not be trusted to be faithful in the future. If she produced children, the people of Camelot could not trust that they were truly little Pendragons and not the offspring of whoever the next man to catch her fancy was. It'd be a stain that would cling to her for the rest of her life, if the nobility weren't just well dressed props.