Adultery is not a crime in Arkansas for ordinary civilians. You cannot be arrested, charged, or jailed for having an affair. Where cheating does carry legal weight is in divorce court, where it is one of the grounds a spouse can use to end a marriage and can shape a few financial and parenting questions around the edges.
No Criminal Penalty for Civilians
Arkansas has no statute making adultery a criminal offense for the general public. The only Arkansas law that treats adultery as punishable sits inside the state’s military justice code, and it applies solely to members of the state military forces. A service member can face court-martial for extramarital conduct that undermines military discipline or brings discredit to the armed forces.1Justia. Arkansas Code 12-64-848 – Adultery That provision has no reach beyond military personnel.
One related option that some other states still allow is also off the table here. Arkansas does not recognize claims like alienation of affection, so you cannot sue your spouse’s affair partner for money damages. The legal consequences of an affair in Arkansas begin and end in divorce proceedings.
Adultery as a Ground for Divorce
The real legal significance of adultery in Arkansas is that it gives the other spouse a reason to file for a fault-based divorce. State law lists adultery committed after the marriage as one of several grounds that allow a court to dissolve the marriage.2Justia. Arkansas Code 9-12-301 – Grounds for Divorce Other fault grounds include felony conviction, habitual drunkenness, cruel treatment, and personal indignities.
The practical advantage is timing. The no-fault option in Arkansas requires spouses to live completely apart for 18 continuous months with no sexual contact before a court will grant the divorce.2Justia. Arkansas Code 9-12-301 – Grounds for Divorce A fault filing on adultery grounds carries no such waiting period. For a spouse who has discovered an affair and wants out quickly, that difference is the whole point.
Proving the Affair
The spouse who files bears the burden of proving the adultery. Direct proof is rarely available, so courts accept circumstantial evidence. Text messages, emails, hotel receipts, financial records showing unexplained spending, photographs, and witness testimony can all help. The evidence has to show both that the unfaithful spouse had the opportunity and the inclination. Vague suspicion is not enough.
Even if you tried to work through the infidelity before filing, you are not locked out of raising it later. Arkansas abolished condonation as a defense to any divorce action, so resuming the marriage after learning of the affair does not bar you from using adultery as a ground down the road.3Justia. Arkansas Code 9-12-325 – Condonation Abolished
Effect on Property and Alimony
Arkansas starts with a presumption that marital property should be split equally. A court departs from that 50/50 default only when an equal division would be inequitable, and the judge must explain the reasoning on the record. Adultery is not on the statutory list of factors a judge may weigh when departing from an equal split. The listed factors focus on the length of the marriage, each spouse’s income and employability, health, contributions to acquiring marital property (including homemaking), and tax consequences.4Justia. Arkansas Code 9-12-315 – Division of Property – Definition A judge cannot simply award a cheating spouse less property as punishment.
Where adultery can filter into the property discussion is through dissipation. If one spouse spent significant marital funds on gifts, trips, or a separate apartment for an affair partner, the other spouse can argue that money should be accounted for in the division. That is a financial argument about shared assets, not a moral one about the affair.
Alimony works similarly. The statute directs a judge to make an alimony order that is “reasonable from the circumstances of the parties and the nature of the case.”5Justia. Arkansas Code 9-12-312 – Alimony – Child Support – Bond Adultery is not specifically listed, though the open-ended language leaves room to consider it. In practice, financial need and ability to pay carry far more weight than fault.
One alimony rule can bite the unfaithful spouse later. Unless the order says otherwise, alimony automatically ends on the recipient’s remarriage, on cohabitation with another person in an intimate relationship (treated the same as remarriage), on the death of either spouse, or when the recipient’s new relationship produces a child support order involving another person. Either spouse can also petition to modify or end alimony based on a significant change in circumstances.5Justia. Arkansas Code 9-12-312 – Alimony – Child Support – Bond A recipient who moves in with their affair partner after the divorce can lose support as a result.
Effect on Child Custody
Custody in Arkansas is decided solely by the best interest of the child, without regard to the sex of either parent.6Justia. Arkansas Code 9-13-101 – Award of Custody An affair by itself does not disqualify a parent. The court does not grade personal choices.
What a court will look at is whether the affair created conditions that harmed the child. Bringing an affair partner around the children in ways that caused distress, neglecting parenting responsibilities while pursuing the relationship, or exposing the child to an unstable environment are the kinds of facts a judge will weigh. Raising adultery in a custody fight without evidence of a concrete impact on the child tends to annoy the judge rather than move the case.
Is Filing on Adultery Grounds Worth It?
Even when an affair clearly happened, filing on fault grounds is not always the smarter move. The upside is skipping the 18-month separation requirement. The downside is cost and time: proving adultery often means hiring a private investigator, subpoenaing records, or calling witnesses at trial, and a contested fault case takes longer in court than an uncontested no-fault filing where both spouses cooperate.
Think carefully about what you actually gain. Because the property statute does not list adultery and the alimony statute does not explicitly reference it, fault filing rarely produces the financial leverage people expect. It earns its keep in two situations: when marital funds were clearly spent on the affair and you need that spending accounted for, and when waiting 18 months to separate is not a tradeoff you are willing to make.