The origin and development of the moral ideas

AMONG many of the lower races a husband is said to possess the power of life and death over his wife; but what this actually means is not always obvious. It is quite probable that, in some cases, the husband may put his wife to death whenever he pleases, without having to fear any disagreeable consequences. In other instances he, by doing so, at all events exposes himself to the vengeance of her family. Among the Bangerang tribe of Victoria, for instance, “he might ill-treat her, give her away, do as he liked with her, or kill her, and no one in the tribe interfered; though, had he proceeded to the last extremity, her death would have been avenged by her brothers or kindred.”1 So, also, among the aborigines of North-West-Central Queensland, “a wife has always her ‘brothers’ to look after her interests,” and if a man kills his wife he has to deliver up one of his own sisters for his late wife’s friends to put to death.2 We shall see in a subsequent chapter that many statements in which absolute marital power is ascribed to savage husbands are not to be interpreted too literally. I venture to believe that the husband's so-called power of life and death is generally restricted by custom to cases where the wife has committed some offence, and, especially, where she has been guilty of unfaithfulness.

The right of punishing the wife capitally, however, is by no means universally granted to the husband in uncivilised communities. Among the Gaika tribe of the Kafirs, “if he puts her to death, he is punished as a murderer.”3 Among the Bakwiri he has to suffer death himself if he kills his wife; if she is unfaithful to him he is only permitted to beat her.4 From the information we possess of the lower races it does not seem to be the general rule that husbands punish their adulterous wives with death; but whether they have the right of doing so is a question seldom touched upon by our authorities.5 We shall see that savage custom often gives to the husband only very limited rights over his wife, and requires that he should treat her with respect.

Among various peoples of a higher type the husband has, under certain circumstances, had the right of punishing his wife capitally; but this seems to be nearly all that is involved in that “power of life and death” which he is said to have possessed over her.6 However, whilst custom or law forbade him to kill his wife without sufficient cause, such a deed was hardly looked upon with the same horror, or treated with the same severity, as the murder of a husband by his wife, owing to the former’s superior position in the family. Among the Langobardi, according to the laws of King Rothar, a husband who killed his wife had to pay the same compensation as anybody else would have had to pay for taking her life, but if a wife killed her husband, she was put to death, and her property forfeited to the family of the dead.7 In Russia, in the seventeenth century, whilst a husband who murdered his wife was, according to law, obnoxious to corporal punishment, a wife who murdered her husband was buried alive, with the head above the ground, and left to perish by hunger.8 According to English law, a woman who killed her husband was guilty of “petit treason,” that is, murder in its most odious degree.9

Among many peoples the life of a woman is held cheaper than that of a man, independently of the relationship between the slayer and his victim. In Burma, if a woman was accidentally killed, less compensation had to be paid than for a man. A Burman explained this in the following words:—“A woman is worth less than a man in that way. A maidservant can be hired for less than a manservant, a daughter can claim less than a son. They cannot do so much work; they are not so strong. If they had been worth more, the law would have been the other way; of course they are worth less.”10 Among Muhammedans the price of blood for a woman is half the sum which is the price of blood for a free man.11 In ancient India the murder of a woman, unless she was with child, was in the eye of the law on a par with the murder of a Sûdra.12 According to Cambrian law, the galanas, or blood-price, of a woman was half the galanas of her brother.13 Among the Teutons the wergeld of a woman varied: sometimes it was the same as that for a man, sometimes only half as much, but sometimes twice as much, or, if she was pregnant, even more.14 These variations depended upon the different points of view from which the offence was looked upon.

By herself she was worth less than a man, as a mother she was worth more;15 and, quite apart from her value, the natural helplessness of her sex tended to aggravate the crime.16 Among modern savages and barbarians, also, the estimate of a woman’s life is in some instances lower than that of a man’s,17 in some equal to it,18 and in some higher.19 Among the Gallas the killing of a free man can be atoned for only by one thousand cattle, whereas fifty are deemed sufficient for the killing of a woman.20 On the other hand, among the Iroquois two hundred yards of wampum were paid for the murder of a woman, and only one hundred for that of a man.21 Among the Rejangs of Sumatra, whilst the compensation for murder is eighty dollars if the victim was an ordinary man or boy, it is one hundred and fifty dollars if the person murdered was a woman or a girl.22 Among the Agār, a Dinka tribe, the murder of a man must be atoned for by a fine of thirty cows, that of a woman by forty cows.23 Where wives are purchased, the killing of a woman involves the destruction of valuable property, and is dealt with accordingly.

As a husband often has “the power of life and death” over his wife, so we may expect to find, even more often, that a master has the same power over his slave. The latter, as a rule, can hardly count on the support of his family, and when, as is frequently the case, he is a prisoner of war, the right of killing an enemy easily passes into the right of killing the slave. In the literature dealing with the lower races we repeatedly meet with the statement that the owner may kill his slave at pleasure, or that he is not accountable for killing him.24 Yet this seems to mean rather that, if he does so, no complaint can be brought against him, or no vengeance taken on him, than that he has an unconditional moral right to put to death a slave whom he no longer cares to keep; we shall see that savage custom very commonly requires that slaves should be treated with kindness by their masters.

In many cases the master is expressly denied the right of killing his slave at his own discretion.25 Among the Bataks, the owner, though allowed to punish his slave, must take care that the latter does not succumb to the punishment.26 Among the Rejangs, if a man kills his slave, he pays half his price as compensation to the feudal chief of the country.27 In Madagascar “masters have full power over their slaves, excepting as to life”;28 and the same is said of the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast.29 The Mandingoes allow the owner to do what he likes to a prisoner of war and to a person who has lost his freedom through insolvency, but he is forbidden to kill a house-slave.30 Among the Barea and Kunáma, by putting to death a slave who is a native of the country, the master even exposes himself to the blood-revenge of the family of the slain.31

The murder of another person’s slave is of course largely regarded as an offence against the property of the owner, but, in many cases at least, it is not exclusively looked upon in this light. Where the master himself is not allowed to kill his slave, the slave possesses the right to live in the full sense of the term. Sometimes there is in this respect little difference between him and a freeman. Among the Beni Amer, whilst the murder of a slave who has been bought is merely compensated for by the payment of the purchase sum, the murder of a slave who belongs to his master by birth is avenged by his relatives, or, if he has none, by the master himself; should the murderer be too high a person, the matter drops, but there is no question of payment in any case.32 Where the system of blood-money prevails, the price paid for the life of a slave is less than that paid for the life of a freeman. Among the Kirghiz the former is only half of the latter.33 In Axim, on the Gold Coast, according to Bosman, the murderer of a slave was usually fined thirty-six crowns, whilst five hundred crowns were demanded for the murder of a free-born negro.34