husband to demand chastity on the part of his wife if he himself was
guilty of infidelity or did not set her an example of good
conduct,[84]--a maxim which present day lawyers may reflect upon with
profit. A father was permitted to put to death his daughter and her
paramour if she was still in his power and if he caught her in the act
at his own house or that of his son-in-law; otherwise he could not.[85]
He must, however, put both man and woman to death at once, when caught
in the act; to reserve punishment to a later date was unlawful. The
husband was not permitted to kill his wife; he might kill her paramour
if the latter was a man of low estate, such as an actor, slave, or
freedman, or had been convicted on some criminal charge involving loss
of citizenship.[86] The reason that the father was given the power which
was denied the husband was that the latter's resentment would be more
likely to blind his power of judging dispassionately the merits of the
case.[87] If now the husband forgot himself and slew his wife, he was
banished for life if of noble birth, and condemned to perpetual hard
labour if of more humble rank.[88] He must at once divorce a wife guilty
of adultery; otherwise he was punished as a pander, and that meant loss
of citizenship.[89] Women convicted of adultery were, when not put to
death, punished by the loss of half their dowry, a third part of their
other goods, and relegation to an island; guilty men suffered the loss
of half of their possessions and similar relegation to an island; but
the guilty parties were never confined in the same place.[90] We have
mention also in several writers of some curious and vicious punishments
that might be inflicted on men guilty of adultery.[91]

Now, all this seems rigorous enough; but, as I have already remarked, we
must beware of imagining that a statute is enforced simply because it
stands in the code. As a matter of fact, public sentiment had grown so
humane in the first three centuries after Christ that it did not for a