"Good wives" die with their husbands as they have vowed, or of grief for
their loss, and are wholly devoted to their interests. Among "bad wives"
are those that wed their husband's slayer, run away from their husbands,
plot against their husbands' lives. The penalty for adultery is death to
both, at husband's option--disfigurement by cutting off the nose of
the guilty woman, an archaic practice widely spread. In one case the
adulterous lady is left the choice of her own death. Married women's
Homeric duties are shown.

There is a curious story, which may rest upon fact, and not be merely
typical, where a mother who had suffered wrong forced her daughter to
suffer the same wrong.

Captive women are reduced to degrading slavery as "harlots" in one case,
according to the eleventh century English practice of Gytha.

THE FAMILY AND BLOOD REVENGE.--This duty, one of the strongest links of
the family in archaic Teutonic society, has left deep traces in Saxo.

To slay those most close in blood, even by accident, is to incur the
guilt of parricide, or kin-killing, a bootless crime, which can only be
purged by religious ceremonies; and which involves exile, lest the gods'
wrath fall on the land, and brings the curse of childlessness on the
offender until he is forgiven.

BOOTLESS CRIMES.--As among the ancient Teutons, botes and were-gilds
satisfy the injured who seek redress at law rather than by the steel.
But there are certain bootless crimes, or rather sins, that imply
"sacratio", devotion to the gods, for the clearing of the community.