4:15 Those who commit adultery among your women, you must have four witnesses against them, from among you. If they do bear witness, then you shall keep such women in their homes until they die, or until GOD creates an exit for them.*
*4:15 A woman witnessed by four people in the act of committing adultery on four different occasions, with four different partners, represents a danger to public health. Such a woman is a depository of germs, and a health quarantine protects the society from her. A good example of an exit that saves a quarantined woman is marriage – someone may wish to marry her, and thus protect her and the society.
4:16 The couple who commits adultery shall be punished.* If they repent and reform, you shall leave them alone. GOD is Redeemer, Most Merciful.
*4:16 Public exposure of the sinners is a major deterrent, as we see in 5:38 and 24:2.
As indicated in the footnote of 4:1:
*4:1 This is the second longest sura, and the title indicates that it aims at defending the women’s rights. Any interpretation must favor the women’s rights, not the other way around.
Therefore we need to understand this verse in the context of women’s rights. Women are the corner stone of morality in a society. When a society has women that fall into this scenario then it is evident that the women are being victimized in that society by the men. To protect the women from falling into continuous sin it is in their best interest to be pulled from the society until God creates an exit for them. An example of this can be seen with the history of Joseph. Joseph was so good looking that the women were throwing themselves at him and tempting him to fall into sin by committing adultery. God saved Joseph from their schemes by placing Joseph in prison where he rose through the ranks ultimately to become the highest ranking Children of Israel in all of Egypt.
12:33 He said, “My Lord, the prison is better than giving in to them. Unless You divert their scheming from me, I may desire them and behave like the ignorant ones.”
You cannot legislate morality. Morality is something that a society has to choose to adopt. We cannot expect that if a law passed that would ban adultery that people will stop the act. Until the minds of the people change there is little that can be done to stop it.
13:11 Shifts (of angels) take turns, staying with each one of you – they are in front of you and behind you. They stay with you, and guard you in accordance with GOD’s commands. Thus, GOD does not change the condition of any people unless they themselves make the decision to change. If GOD wills any hardship for any people, no force can stop it. For they have none beside Him as Lord and Master.
The reason that adultery is so heavily discouraged in the Quran is that adultery leads to children outside of wedlock or even worse abortions. Children who are conceived outside of wedlock are more likely to be in single parent households where oftentimes the father leaves and the child ends up being neglected. Having a single parent household leads to poverty, crime, substance abuse etc. This victimizes the child and society.
Children form a single parent households account for:
63% of all youth suicides
70% of all teenage pregnancies
71% of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse
80% of all prison inmates
90% of all homeless and runaway children
75% of teenage pregnancies
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes
80% of rapist motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes
70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home
5x more likely to commit suicide
32x more likely to run away
20x more likely to have behavriol disorders
14x more likely to commit rape
9x more likely to drop out of school
10x more likely to abuse chemical substances
9x more likely to end up in state operated institutions
20x more likely to end up in prison
This is a major tax on the child, the society and the future generations…Remember the blanket rule in the Quran is that you are free to do whatever you want as long as you do not victimize anyone else. When a couple commits adultery they run the risk of brining an offspring in this world that will have many harsh statistics stacked up against them and this harms everyone in that society.
The State and the Family – Our Political, Economic and Social Decay (start 4:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvM97_Z9g50
The Truth About Sex: Facts You Won’t Believe Are True!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um3EmS9DKsI
The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, shows the struggles of a single parent household.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2113075/
More often than not when a couple commits adultery and the women gets pregnant rather than having the child the couple decides to have an abortion instead, effectively murdering their child.
http://www.numberofabortions.com/
As of today here are the stats for abortion in the US and globally according to numberofabortions.com