[202] Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System, p. 18.
[203] Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 133.
The duty which savages thus in certain instances have imposed on the husband is hardly at all recognised in the archaic State. The Mexicans “did not consider, nor did they punish, as adultery the trespass of a husband with any woman who was free, or not joined in matrimony; wherefore the husband was not bound to so much fidelity as was exacted from the wife,” adultery in her being inevitably punished with death.[204] In China, where adultery in a woman is branded as one of the vilest crimes and the guilty wife is oftentimes “cut into small pieces,” concubinage is a recognised institution of the country.[205] In Corea “conjugal fidelity—obligatory on the woman—is not required of the husband…. Among the nobles, the young bridegroom spends three or four days with his bride, and then absents himself from her for a considerable time, to prove that he does not esteem her too highly. Etiquette dooms her to a species of widowhood, while he spends his hours of relaxation in the society of his concubines. To act otherwise would be considered in very bad taste, and highly unfashionable.”[206] In Japan, “while the man is allowed a loose foot, the woman is expected not only to be absolutely spotless, but also never to show any jealousy, however wide the husband may roam, or however numerous may be the concubines in his family.”[207] According to Hebrew law adultery was a capital offence, but it presupposed that the guilty woman was another man’s wife.[208] The “Aryan” nations in early times generally saw nothing objectionable in the unfaithfulness of a married man, whereas an adulterous wife was subject to the severest penalties.[209] Until some time after the introduction of Christianity among the Teutons their law-books made no mention of the infidelity of husbands, because it was permitted by custom.[210] The Romans defined adultery as sexual intercourse with another man’s wife; on the other hand, the intercourse of a married man with an unmarried woman was not regarded as adultery.[211] The ordinary Greek feeling on the subject is expressed in the oration against Neæra, ascribed to Demosthenes, where the licence accorded to husbands is spoken of as a matter of course:—“We keep mistresses for our pleasures, concubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us legitimate children and to be our faithful house-keepers.”[212]
[204] Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 356.
[205] Doolittle, op. cit. i. 339. Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 149.
[206] Griffis, Corea, p. 251 sq.
[207] Idem, Religions of Japan, p. 320.
[208] Leviticus, xx. 10. Deuteronomy, xxii. 22.
[209] Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 388.
[210] Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 821. Nordström, op. cit. ii. 67 sq. Stemann, Den danske Retshistorie indtil Christian V.’s Lov, pp. 324, 633. Keyser, Efterladte Skrifter, vol. ii. pt. ii. 32 sq. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 662.