The current law in New York says if two consenting adults engage in sexual behaviour and they aren’t married to each other, they could get slapped with a $500 fine or three months in jail.

“Adultery law was almost never used on the books. When it was used, not in anyone getting a criminal charge, women were being threatened by men that if they tried to divorce them, they would hit them up on adultery,” Democratic State Sen. Liz Krueger, one of the bill’s sponsors said.

The legislature’s lower chamber passed the repeal weeks ago for the Governor’s review.

Bill sponsor, Charles Lavine says the 1907 law was only applied just over a dozen times, the last in 2010.

“When you consider in that period of time there have been multiple millions of instances of adultery in the state of New York — it certainly doesn’t serve as much of a deterrent.”

Adultery bans are still on the books in several states across the U.S., though charges are also rare and convictions even rarer. They were traditionally enacted to reduce the number of divorces at a time when a cheating spouse was the only way to secure a legal split.

Most states that still have adultery laws classify them as misdemeanours, but Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Michigan treat adultery as felony offenses. Several states, including Colorado and New Hampshire have moved to repeal their adultery laws, using similar arguments as Assemblyman Lavine.