TITLE: In a integral domain every prime element is irreducible
QUESTION [9 upvotes]: I'm trying to understand a proof of Hungerford's book which says that in a integral domain every prime element is irreducible:

I didn't understand why this implication $p=ab\implies p|a$ or $p|b$, is not the contrary $p=ab\implies a|p$ and $b|p$ ?
I'm a little confused
Thanks in advance

REPLY [3 votes]: I think the OP was asking why the first implication is there instead of the alternate implication he proposed. The answer is that the first implication is part of the definition of a prime. Look at the definition of prime that precedes the theorem in question in Hungerford: An element p of R is prime provided that: (i) p is a nonzero non unit; (ii) p|ab $\Rightarrow$ p|a or p|b.