[56] Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 209.
[57] Ameer Ali, Ethics of Islâm, p. 30.
[58] Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, p. 106.
Among the Hindus sexual impurity is scarcely considered a sin in the men, but “in females nothing is held more execrable or abominable. The unhappy inhabitants of houses of ill fame are looked upon as the most degraded of the human species.”[59] In one of the Pahlavi texts continence is recommended from the point of view of prudence:—“Commit no lustfulness, so that harm and regret may not reach thee from thine own actions.”[60] But in Zoroastrianism, also, chastity is chiefly a female duty. It is written in the Avesta, “Any woman that has given up her body to two men in one day is sooner to be killed than a wolf, a lion, or a snake.”[61]
[59] Calcutta Review, ii. 23. Dubois, Description of the Character, &c. of the People of India, p. 193. Cf. Laws of Manu, ix. 51 sq.
[60] Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad, ii. 23 sq.
[61] Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. 206, n. 1.
Among the ancient Teutons an unmarried woman who belonged to an honourable family was severely punished for going wrong, and the seducer was exposed to the revenge of her family, or had to pay compensation for his deed.[62] The yet un-Romanised Saxons, down to the days of St. Boniface, compelled a maiden who had dishonoured her father’s house, as well as an adulteress, to hang herself, after which her body was burned and her paramour hung over the blazing pile; or she was scourged or cut with knives by all the women of the village till she was dead.[63]
[62] Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 659 sqq. Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 799 sqq. Nordström, Bidrag till den svenska samhälls-författningens historia, ii. 67. Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes, ii. 154.
[63] Milman, History of Latin Christianity, ii. 54.