the penalties against adultery; he abolished an ancient Roman custom, inspired by the idea of retaliation, according to which the guilty woman, shut up in a little hut, was given to the passers-by, who even were to be furnished with little bells to attract attention.[1] The same ignoble penalty was, we have seen, in use among several of the Redskin tribes, and this fact proves, with many others, the original equality of the most diverse races in primitive savagery. Yielding to the ardour of a new convert, Constantine legislated with fury against all moral outrages, and decreed, without wincing, the punishment of death against adulterers of both sexes.
Justinian reformed and moderated legal severities. His code condemns the adulteress to be whipped, to have her hair shaved, and to be shut in a convent for life, if her husband does not take her back before the end of two years. In comparison with the excess of zeal shown by Constantine, this is nearly merciful. We have already said enough of the relaxation of manners under the wiser Pagan emperors. A marriage which was almost free procured for young women of the aristocracy an independence without much restraint; and in practice, at least, and in spite of the laws, adultery had ceased to be the abominable crime which it had begun by being.[2]
XI. Adultery in Barbarous Europe.
Our ancestors of barbarous Europe have had, as regards adultery, customs quite as ferocious as those of the savages of any other race. These same customs were still found recently among the Tcherkesses of the Caucasus, where the injured husband shaved the hair of the guilty woman, split her ears, and sent her back to her parents, who sold her or put her to death.[3] The lover was generally killed by the husband or his relatives. With the Lesghis, the husband who had not killed his adulterous wife in flagrante delicto could have her judged by the council of the tribe, and
