ADULTERY
SG
ADULTERY
their adulterous wives were compelled to put them | away (Maimon. in Gerushin, c. ii). In the passage | just referred to our Lord does not appear to render divorce compulsory, even in case of adultery ; he only permits it in that case alone, by forbidding it in every other. See Divorce.
In the law which assigns the punishment of death to adultery (Lev. xx, 10), the mode in which that punishment should be inflicted is not specified, because it was known from custom. It was not, however, strangulation, as the Talmudists contend, but stoning., ,as we may learn from various passages of Scripture (e. g. Ezek. xvi, 38, 40 ; John viii, 5) ; and as, in fact, Moses himself testifies, if we compare Exod. xxxi, 14 ; xxxv, 2, with Num. xv, 35, 3G. If the adulteress was a slave, the guilty parties were both scourged with a leathern whip, the number of blows not ex- ceeding forty. In this instance the adulterer, in ad- dition to the scourging, was subject to the further pen- alty of bringing a trespass offering (a ram) to the door of the tabernacle, to be offered in his behalf by the priest (Lev. xix, 20-22). Those who wish to en- ter into the reasons of this distinction in favor of the slave may consult Miehaelis {Mosaisches Eeckt, art. 2G4). We only observe that the Moslem law, derived from old Arabian usage, only inflicts upon a slave, for this and other crimes, half the punishment incurred by a free person. — Kitto, s. v. See Slavery.
The system of inheritances, on which the polity of Moses was based, was threatened with confusion by the doubtful offspring caused by this crime, and this secured popular sympathy on the side of morality until a far advanced stage of corruption was reached. Yet, from stoning being made the penalty, we may suppose that the exclusion of private revenge was in- tended. It is probable that, when that territorial ba- sis of polity passed away — as it did after the captivity - — and when, owing to Gentile example, the marriage tie became a looser bond of union, public feeling in regard to adulter}- changed, and the penalty of death was seldom or never inflicted. Thus, in the case of the woman brought under our Lord's notice (John viii), it is likely that no one then thought of stoning her, in fact, but there remained the written law ready for the purpose of the caviller. It is likely, also, that a divorce in which the adulteress lost her dower [see Dowry], and rights of maintenance, etc. (Gemara, Ketkuboth, cap. vii, 6), was the usual remedy sug- gested by a wish to avoid scandal and the excitement of commiseration for crime. The word jrapaday/xem- cai ("make a public example," Matt, i, 19) probably means to bring the case before the local Sanhedrim, which was the usual course [see Trial], but which Joseph did not propose to take, preferring repudiation (Buxtorf, Be Spons. ct Divort. iii, 1-4), because that could be managed privately (\d9pci). — Smith, s. v.
2. Reman. — As the Roman civil law defined adul- tery to be "the violation of another man's bed," the husband's incontinence could not constitute the of- fence. The punishment was left to the discretion of the husband and parents of the adulteress, who, under the old law, could be put to death. The most usual mode of taking revenge against the man offending was by mutilating, castrating, or cutting off the nose or ears. The punishment assigned by the lex Julia de adfilti ris, instituted by Augustus, was banishment, or a heavy tine. It was decreed by Antoninus, that to sustain a charge of adulter}' against a wife, the hus- band who brought it must be innocent himself. The offence was not capital until made so by Constantine, in imitation of the Jewish law. Under Macrinus, adulterers were burnt at the stake. Under Con- stantius and Constans they were burnt, or sewed up in sacks and thrown into the sea. But the punish- ment was mitigated, under Leo and Mareian, to per- petual banishment or cutting off the nose; and, under Justinian, the wife was only to be scourged, lose her
dower, and be shut up in a monastery ; or, at the ex- piration of two years, the husband might take her back again ; if he refused, she was shaven, and made j a nun for life. Theodosius instituted the shocking practice of public constupration, which, however, ha soon abolished.
3. Other ancient Nations. — The punishment of cut- ting off the nose brings to mind the passage in which the prophet Ezekiel (xxiii, 25) after, in the name of the Lord, reproving Israel and Judah for their adul- teries (i. e. idolatries) with the Assyrians and Chal- deans, threatens the punishment, " they shall take
' away thy nose and thy ears," which Jerome states was actually the punishment of adultery in those na- I tions. One or both of these mutilations, most gener- ally that of the nose, were also inflicted by other na- 1 tions, as the Persians and Egyptians, and even the I Romans ; but we suspect that among the former, as i with the latter, it was less a judicial punishment than a summary infliction by the aggrieved party {/En. vi, 49G). It would also seem that these mutilations were more usually inflicted on the male than the female adul- terer. In Eizypt, however, cutting off the nose was the female punishment, and the man was beaten terribly with rods (Diod. Sic. i, 89, 90). The respect with which the conjugal union was treated in that country in the earliest times is manifested in the history of Abraham (Gen. xii, 19). See Harem.