VIII. Adultery among the Egyptians, the Berbers, and the Semites.
Diodorus tells us that in ancient Egypt the man who was guilty of adultery received a thousand lashes, whilst the woman suffered the amputation of her nose, a very special penalty, which we have seen used in America and negro Africa, which we shall find also among the Saxons of England, and for which Diodorus has given us the reason. "The legislator," he says, "has intended to deprive the woman of attractions which she had only made use of for seduction."[1]
The Bible, also, is not tender towards adulterers. But it makes no distinction between the culpability of the man and the woman; stoning is for both. This terrible punishment is not only inflicted on the faithless wife, but on the inconstant fiancée. The accomplices even are put to death. There are, however, some distinctions, and precautions are taken to mitigate the rigour of the law; thus the guilty woman is only condemned to be stoned if the crime has been committed in the city. If in the fields, the man alone incurs stoning;[2] it is thus admitted that the woman may have suffered violence. Besides this, two witnesses are in all cases necessary to establish the crime. Lastly, the slave woman is not punished with death.[3]
The ancient Arabs were not more clement towards adultery than their cousins of Palestine, and the Bedouins, who have preserved more of the old customs, still consider adultery as the greatest of crimes. Burckhardt tells us that with them the adulterous woman is beheaded either by her father or her brother.[4] These are morals that go far beyond the prescriptions of the Koran. It would seem that Mahomet, much given to sexual pleasures himself, had not the courage to be too severe on others. He, indeed, calls the adultery of woman the "infamous action" par excellence, but he directs, nevertheless, that the crime be proved by four witnesses.[5] Moreover, the woman can
