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>then in turn the king could save his servant." Yeah, I don't understand what this part means at all honestly.
by grawprog 7y ago
>then in turn the king could save his servant."
Yeah, I don't understand what this part means at all honestly.
- throw1234651234 7y agoLikely that the king owns every man and losing manpower sucks, so if the husband wants to save his wife, the king can choose to save his servant who committed adultery.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoSo, uh, can or can't the wife's husband choose to spare her?
- magicsmoke 7y agoIf the wife's husband spares his wife, then the king would spare the person that committed adultery with her. Otherwise they would both die.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoThank you, that makes sense now. The "king's servant" was throwing me off—I guess the idea is that everyone is a servant of the king.
- oldgradstudent 7y agoI wonder if subject would have been a better translation than servant.
- AgentMatt 7y agoI would interpret this as the king being allowed to pardon the citizen who committed the adultery, if the husband chooses to forgive his wife. I actually like the law. While it does still display an asymmetry of power in the relationship, it implements a negative incentive for cheating for both men and women. This is progress compared to a more primitive law that one could imagine where women could be punished arbitrarily, e.g. to death, while the man in the cheating act could not be punished by law. Also, it seems better than vigilante justice. It gives both parties in the decision making the opportunity to show empathy, and so acknowledge the adultery without explicit punishment.
- riffraff 7y agoIt's hard to grasp that old "bad" laws could still be very progressive. I remember a teacher telling us that "an eye for an eye" should be viewed not as a crazy excessive response, but as a very modern "the punishment should be commensurate to the crime", which was not a given.