Virginia’s code still contains a surprising collection of crazy laws that remain on the books: it is a misdemeanor to insult someone’s chastity, a Class 4 misdemeanor to spit on a city sidewalk, a felony to wear a mask in public to conceal your identity, and a crime for a married person to sleep with anyone other than their spouse. Sunday hunting with a firearm is barred within 200 yards of a church. Several Hampton Roads cities put age limits on trick-or-treating. Most of these statutes are rarely enforced, but they are still law, because removing a statute in Virginia requires the same legislative work as passing one, and nobody prioritizes the cleanup.
Insulting Someone’s Character Is a Misdemeanor
Virginia Code 18.2-417 makes it a Class 3 misdemeanor to speak or publish words “derogatory of such person’s character for virtue and chastity” or to use “grossly insulting language” toward someone of good reputation.1Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-417 – Slander and Libel A conviction carries a fine of up to $500.
The statute traces to an era when questioning someone’s moral character could trigger a duel, and it targets the kind of words that “tend to violence and breach of the peace.” A defendant can argue the other person provoked them, but provocation functions as a sentencing factor rather than a complete defense. Prosecutions are rare, and the law sits in obvious tension with modern free speech protections, but it has not been repealed.
Spitting on a Sidewalk
Virginia Code 18.2-322 makes it illegal to spit on the floor, stairways, or any part of a public building, inside public transit, or on any sidewalk in a city or town.2Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-322 – Expectorating in Public Places The statute specifically lists “sputum, saliva, mucus, or any form of saliva or sputum.” Violators face a Class 4 misdemeanor and a fine of up to $250.3Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-11 – Punishment for Conviction of Misdemeanor
This one had a real purpose when it was written. Anti-spitting laws spread across the country in the early twentieth century as part of public health campaigns against tuberculosis, which spreads through airborne droplets. The underlying disease threat faded decades ago. The statute did not.
Wearing a Mask in Public Is a Felony
Under Virginia Code 18.2-422, anyone over 16 who wears a mask, hood, or other face covering that conceals their identity in a public place commits a Class 6 felony, punishable by one to five years in prison.4Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-422 – Prohibition of Wearing of Masks in Certain Places; Exceptions It is not a misdemeanor. It is a felony.
The law was aimed at the Ku Klux Klan, whose members used hoods to intimidate while hiding their identities. Intent narrows it: the mask must be worn “with the intent to conceal his identity.” The exceptions reveal how awkwardly the statute fits modern life. You are exempted for Halloween costumes, protective equipment at work, and theatrical performances. A medical mask requires either a written doctor’s note specifying the reason and duration, or a gubernatorial emergency declaration that explicitly waives the statute. That emergency waiver mattered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Without one, a Virginian wearing a surgical mask into a grocery store was technically committing the same class of crime as involuntary manslaughter.
Adultery Is Still a Crime
Virginia Code 18.2-365 makes it a Class 4 misdemeanor for any married person to have sexual intercourse with someone other than their spouse, punishable by a fine of up to $250.5Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-365 – Adultery Defined; Penalty3Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-11 – Punishment for Conviction of Misdemeanor Prosecutions are vanishingly rare, but Virginia remains one of a shrinking number of states where cheating on a spouse is technically a criminal act.
For service members stationed at Virginia’s many bases, the stakes are far higher. Adultery under the Uniform Code of Military Justice can lead to a dishonorable discharge and up to a year of confinement.
Sunday Hunting Near a Place of Worship
Virginia Code 29.1-521 originally declared Sunday “a rest day for all species of wild bird and wild animal life,” a restriction rooted in colonial-era laws meant to enforce church attendance.6Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 29.1-521 – Unlawful to Hunt, Trap, Possess, Sell, or Transport Wild Birds and Wild Animals Except as Permitted; Exception; Penalty The total ban held for centuries before the General Assembly began carving out exceptions.
Today, landowners and people with written permission from a landowner can hunt on private property on Sundays, and Sunday waterfowl hunting is allowed in designated areas. Two restrictions still catch people off guard. You cannot hunt with a firearm on Sunday within 200 yards of any place of worship or its accessory buildings. You also cannot use dogs to hunt deer or bear on Sundays. The religious origin is faded but not gone.
Animal Fighting Involving Minors
Virginia Code 3.2-6571 makes participating in, staging, or profiting from animal fighting a Class 1 misdemeanor, carrying up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.7Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 3.2-6571 – Animal Fighting; Penalty Allowing a minor to attend an animal fight, or involving a minor in the operation, bumps the charge to a Class 6 felony with a possible prison sentence of one to five years.
Virginia’s approach is aggressive compared with many states. Since 2008, even attending an animal fight or possessing paraphernalia associated with one has been a felony, regardless of whether minors are present.
Halloween Age Limits in Hampton Roads
Several Virginia cities have local ordinances that cap the age for trick-or-treating and impose strict Halloween curfews. In most Hampton Roads communities, children over 12 are barred from going door to door, and the night must wrap up by 8:00 p.m. Chesapeake raised its own age limit to 14 in 2019 after widespread criticism of a previous ordinance that technically allowed up to six months in jail for teenagers caught trick-or-treating.
The jail provision was never actually used. Police departments treat these ordinances as tools to intervene with older teenagers causing trouble, not as grounds to arrest a 13-year-old dressed as a vampire. The specific age cutoffs and curfew times vary between jurisdictions, but the pattern holds across Newport News, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, and other Hampton Roads cities.
Laws That Were Finally Repealed
A few of the Commonwealth’s best-known oddities have come off the books recently, and they are worth knowing about because they still appear on older lists of Virginia’s strange laws.
For most of Virginia’s history, cursing in public was a crime. “Profane swearing” sat alongside public intoxication in the code as a Class 4 misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $250.3Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-11 – Punishment for Conviction of Misdemeanor The U.S. Supreme Court held in 1971 that profanity is generally protected speech unless directed at a specific person in a way likely to provoke violence, but Virginia kept the ban for nearly five more decades. The General Assembly finally struck the “profanely curses or swears” language from Virginia Code 18.2-388 in 2020, leaving only the public intoxication portion intact.8Virginia General Assembly. Virginia Acts of Assembly – Chapter 2020 Session
Virginia Code 18.2-344 once made sex between unmarried people a crime. The Virginia Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional in Martin v. Ziherl in 2005, applying the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning from Lawrence v. Texas. The statute was not formally removed from the code until 2020.9Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-344 – Repealed A companion statute, Virginia Code 18.2-345, criminalized unmarried couples who “lewdly and lasciviously” lived together. The General Assembly repealed it in 2013.10Virginia Code Commission. Virginia Code 18.2-345 – Repealed
Why These Laws Survive
The reason strange statutes persist in Virginia is mechanical rather than ideological. The General Assembly meets for a limited session each year, and every repeal requires a sponsor, committee hearings, floor votes in both chambers, and the governor’s signature. There is little political incentive to spend that effort on a law nobody enforces. Virginia’s profanity ban survived until 2020 not because anyone defended it, but because no legislator made it a priority. The fornication statute sat in the code for 15 years after a court declared it unconstitutional.
Court rulings render some of these laws unenforceable without formally erasing them. A prosecutor who tried to charge someone under a statute the courts have struck down would see the case thrown out. But the text remains, often with nothing more than a note pointing to the relevant decision. That is how Virginia ends up with a code that simultaneously reflects twenty-first century constitutional standards and seventeenth-century ideas about Sunday observance.