[§ 5. Domestic Offences and their Punishments.]

We will now mention some offences in families with their peculiar punishments. Infidelity of the wife to the Edition: current; Page: [106] husband is punished with the greatest ignominy. In the husband, it never was punished with death, nor in the woman unless where the greatest jealousy prevails. It would be thought ridiculous in our country to bring a woman to the scaffold for adultery. Forcible marriages and rapes are generally punished with death1. Bigamy, as it dishonours the former wife, is punished capitally2. As there is the closest connexion betwixt persons in a family, if the wife kills3 the husband, it is considered as a sort of petty treason, and the punishment by the English law is burning alive4. The same is the punishment if a servant kills his master or makes an attempt upon him5. Thus we have finished all that is to be said with regard to man, considered as a member of a family.

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