CONVERSATION - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CONVERSATIONAuthored

The Law Mind • 942 words

Definition

"Conversation" carries two distinct legal meanings, largely separated by context and era.

1. Conduct and manner of living. In older legal usage, "conversation" means a person's general behavior, habits, and way of life — not merely speech. Phrases such as "chaste life and conversation" appear in historical pleadings, character evidence standards, and moral fitness determinations to describe the overall conduct of an individual. This sense is largely archaic in modern practice but survives in some statutory language and older case law.

2. Criminal conversation. As a compound term, "criminal conversation" (often abbreviated "crim. con.") is a common law tort action brought by a husband against a man who had sexual intercourse with his wife. The action was grounded in the husband's property-like interest in his wife's exclusive consortium and fidelity. It treated the adulterous act as an actionable civil injury to the husband, distinct from — but often joined with — the action for alienation of affections. Criminal conversation required proof of the adulterous act itself; the wife's consent was no defense, and the defendant's subjective intent was largely irrelevant.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The exchange of ideas through talking; a spoken interchange between two or more people.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): General course of conduct or behavior (archaic); familiar intercourse or close association; also commerce and traffic with others.

The legal gap is significant in two directions. First, the everyday modern meaning — spoken dialogue — is almost entirely absent from the primary legal uses of the term. Second, the archaic common meaning (conduct, behavior) is precisely the legal meaning that survives in older doctrine. Researchers encountering "conversation" in pre-twentieth-century legal sources should not read it as referring to speech.

Common Confusion

"Criminal conversation" is frequently confused with alienation of affections. Both are consortium-based torts with deep historical roots, and they were often pleaded together. The distinction matters: criminal conversation required proof of an adulterous sexual act and was essentially a strict-liability claim once that act was shown; alienation of affections targeted deliberate interference with the marital relationship more broadly and did not require proof of adultery. Some jurisdictions that abolished one retained the other, so the distinction remains relevant when researching surviving causes of action.

"Conversation" in the conduct sense is also sometimes confused with "character," but the two operated differently in historical evidence law. Character was an attribute; conversation was the observable behavioral evidence of it.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century sources — pleadings, treatises, ecclesiastical records, domestic relations cases — will encounter "conversation" meaning conduct or comportment far more often than any speech-related sense. Misreading the term is an easy error.

Criminal conversation as a tort was abolished by statute in most American jurisdictions during the twentieth century, often alongside alienation of affections. Whether a given jurisdiction abolished both together or retained one while discarding the other varies and requires jurisdiction-specific research. Older digests and form books will contain extensive crim. con. material that has no modern analog in those states, which can create misleading search results when canvassing historical databases.

The phrase "chaste conversation" or "chaste life and conversation" appears in character testimony standards, competency rules, and fitness determinations across equity and probate contexts. In those settings it is a legal term of art describing a person's overall moral conduct, not a comment on their speech habits.

The archaic behavior-sense of "conversation" also connects to the canon law tradition, which fed into early American domestic relations doctrine through ecclesiastical court practice. Researchers tracing the origins of marital fault grounds will find this usage throughout that lineage.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd ed.) is the most useful of the shelf sources here, directly defining "conversation" in the conduct sense ("manner of living; habits of life; conduct") and providing the criminal conversation definition with case support. The entry correctly distinguishes the two senses and anchors criminal conversation to the husband's actionable injury framework.

Black's (1st ed.) and Anderson's Dictionary of Law do not yield useful material on this term from the excerpts available — the retrieved passages concern unrelated subjects (treason maxims and contribution between co-sureties respectively). Researchers should not infer from this absence that those sources lack relevant entries; it likely reflects retrieval rather than editorial omission.

Webster's 1913 is genuinely instructive here. Its archaic behavioral sense of "conversation" — citing Philippians i.27 ("Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel") — confirms that the conduct meaning was standard English through the nineteenth century, not legal jargon. This explains why it appears so naturally in legal documents of that era without definition or qualification.

Jurisdictional Note

Criminal conversation survives as a viable cause of action in only a small number of American jurisdictions. Most states abolished it by statute during the mid-to-late twentieth century. North Carolina is among the notable exceptions. Researchers should verify current status jurisdiction by jurisdiction before treating historical doctrine as live law.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Intentional Torts — Property and Economic — Conversion (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia) [torts_107] — for comparison between conversion of property and the separate criminal conversation tort framework.

Criminal Conversion and Unauthorized Use of Property (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia) [criminal_76] — note that "criminal conversion" in the criminal law encyclopedia refers to unauthorized use of property, not criminal conversation; researchers should not conflate these distinct doctrines.

CONVERSATIONmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

against the emperor or the republic. Inst. 4, Adultery, considered in its aspect of a civil 18, 3. Crimen læsæ majestatis omnia alia crimina excedit quoad pœnam. 3 Inst. 210. The crime of treason exceeds all other crimes in its punishment. Crimen omnia ex se nata vitiat. Crime vitiates everything which springs from it. 5 Hill, 523, 531.

CONVERSATIONmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

The remedy in equity is more effective; as, between co-sureties. 1 But there is "no contribution between wrongdoers." This rule applies appropriately only to cases where there has been intentional violation of law, and where the wrong-doer is to be presumed to have known that the act was unlawful. It fails when the injury grows out of a duty resting primarily upon one of the parties, and but for his negligence there would have been no cause of action against the other. A servant is liable to his master for the damages recovered against him in consequence of the negligence of the servant.3 A municipality, made to pay damages for an injury resulting from the negligence of a private citizen, may recover the amount from the citizen. See AvERAGE, General; JOINT. 1. The etymological meaning (which see, below) seems to be preserved in the offense termed criminal conversation: adultery regarded as an injury to the husband, entitling him to damages in a civil action.5 The abbreviation “crim, con." has acquired a fixed and universal signification which the courts will take notice of without proof.6 The development of the word has been substantially as follows: L. conversatio, frequent use, habitual abode, intercourse: conversari, to turn to often, to dwell, live with. (1) Manner of living; habits of life; behaving, behavior; conduct; life. 1 Guerin v. Reese, 33 Cal. 297 (1867). 2 Little Rock, &c. R. Co. v. Eubanks, 48 Ark. 467 (1886); 22 N. Y. 249. 3 Story, Agency, § 368; 14 Gray, 446; 52 Pa. 96; 10 Barber v. Kennedy, 18 Minn. 226 (1872); 33 id. 350; Wall. 644. 77 Va. 125. • Constitution, Art. III, sec. 2; 2 Dall. 431-32; 109 U. S. 477; Story, Const. § 1668. • Gaines v. Fuentes, 92 U. S. 20 (1875), Field, J.; Searl v. School District, 124 id. 199 (1888), cases, Matthews, J. 10 L. contumax, stubborn, obstinate. 42 Bl. Com. 120. 53 Bl. Com. 139. Gibson v. The Cincinnati Enquirer, 5 Cent. Law J. 381 (1877); Same v. Same, 2 Flip. 125 (1877). See Wales v. Miner, 89 Ind. 118 (1883); 15 Am. Law Reg. 451-60 (1876), cases.

CONVERSATIONmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

Manner of living; habits of life; conduct; as in the phrase “chaste life and conversation.” Bradshaw v. People, 153 Il. 156, 38 N. E. 652. “Criminal conversation” means seduction of another man’s wife, considered ps an actionable injury to the husband. Prettyman vy. Williamson, 1 Pennewill (Del.) 224, 39 Atl. 731; Crocker v. Crocker, 98 Fed. 702.

CONVERSATIONn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

General course of conduct; behavior. [Archaic] Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel. Philip. i. 27. Familiar intercourse; intimate fellowship or association; close acquaintance. "Conversation with the best company." Dryden. I set down, out of long experience in business and much conversation in books, what I thought pertinent to this business. Bacon. Commerce; intercourse; traffic. [Obs.] All traffic and mutual conversation. Hakluyt. Colloqual discourse; oral interchange of sentiments and observations; informal dialogue. The influence exercised by his [Johnson's] conversation was altogether without a parallel. Macaulay. Sexual intercourse; as, criminal conversation.

conversationnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

Expression and exchange of individual ideas through talking with other people; also, a set instance or occasion of such talking. | The back-and-forth play of the blades in a bout. | The protocol-based interaction between systems processing a transaction. | Interaction; commerce or intercourse with other people; dealing with others. | Behaviour, the way one conducts oneself; a person's way of life. | Sexual intercourse. | Engagement with a specific subject, idea, field of study etc.

conversationverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To engage in conversation (with).

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