WOMEN AND ANCIENT LAWS
It need hardly be said that when the parties to adultery are both married the sin is more grievous than when one of them is single. Nor is it sufficient for a married person whose guilty partner in this act was also married to declare in confession the fact simply of having committed adultery. The circumstance that both parties to the sin were married is one that must be madeknown. Again the adulterer in his confession must specify whether, as married, he violated his own marriage pledge or; as single he brought about the violation of the marriage pledge of another. Finally, it is to be observed that in case only one of the parties to adultery is married, a more heinous sin is committed when the married person is the woman than when she is the unmarried agent. For in the former instance the due process of generation is not infrequently interfered with, to the injury of the lawful husband; moreover, uncertainty of parentage may result, and even a false heir may be imposed upon the family. Such a distinction as is here remarked, therefore, calls for specification in the confessional.
The movement for what has been called the emancipation of women, which has been so marked a feature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has made a deeper impression on the English-speaking countries than on any other. The outcry against the unjust oppression of women by man made laws has grown ever stronger and stronger, though it must be confessed that every successive improvement in the position of women has also been brought about by man made laws. The Laws of Manu are striking on this point. In ancient India, "though destitute of virtue or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, yet a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife"; on the other, hand, "if a wife, proud of the greatness of her relatives or [her own] excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord, the king shall cause her to be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many" (Laws of Manu, V, 154; VIII, 371) But it is condemned and punished only as a violation of the husband's rights. Among such peoples the wife is commonly reckoned as the property of her spouse, and adultery, therefore, is identified with theft. But it is theft of an aggravated kind, as the property which it would spoliate is more highly appraised than other chattels. So it is that in some parts of Africa the seducer is punished with the loss of one or both hands,). At present, in our States there is not this discrimination, but divorce, when granted on the ground of adultery, is obtainable by the wife just as by the husband. Despite the protests of Mr. Gladstone, the English Parliament passed, in 1857, a law by which a husband may obtain absolute divorce on account of simple adultery in his wife, while the latter can be freed from her adulterous husband only when his infidelity has been attended with such cruelty "as would have entitled her to adivorce a mensâ et toro." The same discrimination against the wife is found in some of our early New England colonies. Thus, inMassachusetts the adultery of the husband, unlike that of the wife, was not sufficient ground for divorce. And the same most likely was the case in Plymouth Plantation (Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, II, 331-351). At present, in our States there is not this discrimination, but divorce, when granted on the ground of adultery, is obtainable by the wife just as by the husband.
The movement for what has been called the emancipation of women, which has been so marked a feature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has made a deeper impression on the English-speaking countries than on any other. The outcry against the unjust oppression of women by man made laws has grown ever stronger and stronger, though it must be confessed that every successive improvement in the position of women has also been brought about by man made laws. The Laws of Manu are striking on this point. In ancient India, "though destitute of virtue or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, yet a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife"; on the other, hand, "if a wife, proud of the greatness of her relatives or [her own] excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord, the king shall cause her to be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many" (Laws of Manu, V, 154; VIII, 371) But it is condemned and punished only as a violation of the husband's rights. Among such peoples the wife is commonly reckoned as the property of her spouse, and adultery, therefore, is identified with theft. But it is theft of an aggravated kind, as the property which it would spoliate is more highly appraised than other chattels. So it is that in some parts of Africa the seducer is punished with the loss of one or both hands,). At present, in our States there is not this discrimination, but divorce, when granted on the ground of adultery, is obtainable by the wife just as by the husband. Despite the protests of Mr. Gladstone, the English Parliament passed, in 1857, a law by which a husband may obtain absolute divorce on account of simple adultery in his wife, while the latter can be freed from her adulterous husband only when his infidelity has been attended with such cruelty "as would have entitled her to adivorce a mensâ et toro." The same discrimination against the wife is found in some of our early New England colonies. Thus, inMassachusetts the adultery of the husband, unlike that of the wife, was not sufficient ground for divorce. And the same most likely was the case in Plymouth Plantation (Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, II, 331-351). At present, in our States there is not this discrimination, but divorce, when granted on the ground of adultery, is obtainable by the wife just as by the husband.
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