Whilst Christianity generally increased the sanctity of human life, it could add nothing to the horror with which parricide was regarded by the ancients. The Church punished it more severely than ordinary murder,[13] and so did, at least in Latin countries, the secular authorities.[14] In France, even to this day, a person convicted of parricide is “conduit sur le lieu de l’exécution en chemise, nu-pieds, et la tête couverte d’un voile noir”;[15] and whilst meurtre is excusable if provoked by grave personal violence or by an attempt to break into a dwelling-house by day, parricide is never excusable under any circumstances.[16]
[13] Gregory III., Judicia congrua pœnitentibus, ch. 3 (Labbe-Mansi, Conciliorum collectio, xii. 289). Pœnitentiale Bigotianum, iv. 1 (Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche, p. 453). Pœnitent. Pseudo-Theodori, xxi. 18 (ibid. p. 588).
[14] Chauveau and Hélie, Théorie du Code Pénal, iii. 394 (France). Salvioli, Manuale di storia del diritto italiano, p. 570. In Scotland, also, parricide formerly had a place in the list of aggravated murders (Hume, Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, i. 459 sq.; for a sentence passed in 1688, see Pitcairn, Criminal Trials in Scotland, iii. 198); though nowadays it is penalised in the same way as other forms of murder (Erskine, Principles of the Law of Scotland, p. 559). There never was any special punishment for parricide in English law (Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, iv. 202. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, iii. 95).
[15] Code Pénal, art. 13.
[16] Ibid. art. 321 sqq.
As regards the feelings with which ordinary parricide is looked upon by uncivilised peoples, direct information is almost entirely wanting. It is rarely mentioned at all, no doubt because it is very unusual.[17] Among the Kafirs of Natal, though murder is generally punished by a fine, death is inflicted on him who kills a parent.[18] Among the Ossetes a parricide draws upon himself a fearful punishment: he is shut up in his house with all his possessions, surrounded by the populace and burned alive.[19] To judge from the respect which, among the majority of uncivilised peoples, children are considered to owe to their parents, it seems very probable that the murder of a father or a mother is generally condemned by them as a particularly detestable form of homicide. But to this rule there is an important exception. According to a custom prevalent among various savages or barbarians, a parent who is worn out with age or disease is abandoned or killed.
[17] Among the Omahas there have been a few cases of parricide caused by drunkenness (Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 369). A Chukchi killed his father for charging him with cowardice and awkwardness (Sarytschew, ‘Voyage of Discovery,’ in Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages, vi. 51). In Lánda “it is no uncommon thing for a son to murder his father in order to step into his shoes” (Emin Pasha in Central Africa, p. 230). See also Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, i. 224.
[18] Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, p. 103.
[19] von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 415.
Hearne states that, among the Northern Indians, one half at least of the aged persons of both sexes, when no longer capable of walking, are left alone to starve and perish of want.[20] Among the Californian Gallinomero, when the father can no longer feebly creep to the forest to gather his back-load of fuel or a basket of acorns, and is only a burden to his sons, “the poor old wretch is not infrequently thrown down on his back and securely held while a stick is placed across his throat, and two of them seat themselves on the ends of it until he ceases to breathe.”[21] The custom of killing or abandoning old parents has been noticed among several other North American tribes,[22] the natives of Brazil,[23] various South Sea Islanders,[24] a few Australian tribes,[25] and some peoples in Africa[26] and Asia.[27] According to ancient writers, it occurred formerly among many Asiatic[28] and European nations, including the Vedic people[29] and peoples of Teutonic extraction.[30] As late as the fifth or sixth century it was the custom among the Heruli for relatives to kindle a funeral pile for their old folks, although a stranger was employed to give the death wound.[31] And there is an old English tradition of “the Holy Mawle, which they fancy hung behind the church door, which when the father was seaventie, the sonne might fetch to knock his father in the head, as effete and of no more use.”[32]