The ancient Greeks accepted infanticide, the Romans could punish adultery with death. As for medieval judges, they inflicted on rapists a sentence proportional to the status of the victim! But not all crimes are eternal:today homosexuality or abortion are no longer on the list.
The list of "crimes" has evolved throughout history.
Adultery • Historically, in terms of marital breakdown, women have been more often incriminated than their husbands:in addition to the dishonor that strikes the deceived husband, their misconduct in fact casts doubt on the filiation of the children they give birth to. With the risk of seeing legitimate heirs cheated for the benefit of bastards. In ancient Egypt, a suspicious husband could demand that his wife swear before witnesses that she had not had an extramarital affair. Among the ancient Greeks, according to Aristophanes (5th-4th c. BC), an adulterous lover sees himself driving a horseradish into the foundation and depilating his behind with hot ashes! But Aristophanes, the comic poet, is perhaps not the most reliable source… Perhaps more reliable, Plutarch (1st-2nd centuries) reports that an adulteress caught in the act in Cyme (Ionia) is, she, exposed to everyone's gaze on the back of a donkey. In Rome, the penalty can go as far as death for the wife and her accomplice, again if they are caught in the act. More generally, if a man knows that his wife is cheating on him, he has a period of a few months to repudiate her or divorce her. If he does not, he is considered to be his wife's pimp, and both risk being stripped of their social rights.
In the eyes of the Catholic Church, adultery is a sin that flouts the sacrament of marriage. Also, in medieval northern France, the courts of the Church inflicted public penances or fines. At the end of the 12th century, the urban customs of Languedoc and Gascony punished adulterous lovers with the "penalty of the race" :they must travel the city in the simplest device.
Abortion • In antiquity, the embryo was not considered a human person with rights, and there was no ethical concept of abortion. This, however, is condemned because it deprives the father of the family of his rights over the children. Among Jews and Christians, all life, from conception, is still seen today as a sacred gift from God, and among Catholics, canon law condemns abortion, a criminal act. In other areas of civilization, selective abortions are commonly practiced for the benefit of boys.
This is the case in India, where a law in theory prohibits prenatal diagnosis which can be punished by five years in prison, or in China - even since the end of the one-child policy. In France, in turn considered a criminal, anti-patriotic or protest act (women's right to dispose of their bodies), abortion was legalized in 1975. The trend towards authorization became widespread in the West in the 20th century, but the pressure of religion is always felt. Abortion is thus subject to restrictions (rape, incest, fetal malformations) in certain countries that are predominantly Catholic - such as Poland - or Orthodox - such as Cyprus, which has, however, just relaxed its legislation. It remains illegal in American or Asian countries also with a Catholic majority (Salvador, Nicaragua, Philippines…) but also in Muslim lands (Surinam, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt…). According to the WHO, less than 40% of women have full access to abortion worldwide.
Honor killing • Suspected of infidelity and disfigured by acid in Cambodia, killed for refusing a marriage proposal in Bangladesh, stoned for marrying the man of her choice or strangled for "intolerable behavior" in Pakistan… In some countries, women may be victims of honor killings, acts of violence, generally murder, committed against them by one or more members of their family - husband, father, brother - or a close - a partner, for example. The reason ? Behavior perceived as dishonorable to them, their family or the community to which they belong.
In Turkey, damage to honor can take very different forms:walking in front of your husband, talking or saying hello to a man in the street, looking out the window, conversing too long with a third party, coming home late Or go to the cinema. Committed in private and often disguised as suicide, this ancient practice is already attested in ancient Rome. Today, according to the United Nations Population Fund, more than 5,000 honor killings are reported every year worldwide.
Homicide • Homicide is as old as mankind. 430,000 years ago, at La Sima de Los Huesos (Spain), a hominid struck its victim - whose skull was found smashed - and mortally wounded it.
Adultery • Historically, in terms of marital breakdown, women have been more often incriminated than their husbands:in addition to the dishonor that strikes the deceived husband, their misconduct in fact casts doubt on the filiation of the children they give birth to. With the risk of seeing legitimate heirs cheated for the benefit of bastards. In ancient Egypt, a suspicious husband could demand that his wife swear before witnesses that she had not had an extramarital affair. Among the ancient Greeks, according to Aristophanes (5 e -4 e s. av. J.-C.), an adulterous lover sees himself driving a horseradish in the foundation and depilating the behind with hot ashes! But Aristophanes, comic poet, is perhaps not the most reliable source… Without doubt more worthy of faith, Plutarch (1 st -2 e centuries) reports that an adulteress caught in flagrante delicto in Cyme (Ionia) is exposed to all eyes on the back of a donkey. In Rome, the penalty can go as far as death for the wife and her accomplice, again if they are caught in the act. More generally, if a man knows that his wife is cheating on him, he has a period of a few months to repudiate her or divorce her. If he does not, he is considered to be his wife's pimp, and both risk being stripped of their social rights.
In the eyes of the Catholic Church, adultery is a sin that flouts the sacrament of marriage. Also, in medieval northern France, the courts of the Church inflicted public penances or fines. At the end of the 12 e century, the urban customs of Languedoc and Gascony punish adulterous lovers with the "penalty of the race" :they must travel the city in the simplest device.
Abortion • In antiquity, the embryo was not considered a human person with rights, and there was no ethical concept of abortion. This, however, is condemned because it deprives the father of the family of his rights over the children. Among Jews and Christians, all life, from conception, is still seen today as a sacred gift from God, and among Catholics, canon law condemns abortion, a criminal act. In other areas of civilization, selective abortions are commonly practiced for the benefit of boys.
This is the case in India, where a law in theory prohibits prenatal diagnosis which can be punished by five years in prison, or in China - even since the end of the one-child policy. In France, in turn considered a criminal, anti-patriotic or protest act (women's right to dispose of their bodies), abortion was legalized in 1975. The trend towards authorization became widespread in the West in the 20 e century, but the pressure of religion is still felt. Abortion is thus subject to restrictions (rape, incest, fetal malformations) in certain countries that are predominantly Catholic - such as Poland - or Orthodox - such as Cyprus, which has, however, just relaxed its legislation. It remains illegal in American or Asian countries also with a Catholic majority (Salvador, Nicaragua, Philippines…) but also in Muslim lands (Surinam, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt…). According to the WHO, less than 40% of women have full access to abortion worldwide.
Honor killing • Suspected of infidelity and disfigured by acid in Cambodia, killed for refusing a marriage proposal in Bangladesh, stoned for marrying the man of her choice or strangled for "intolerable behavior" in Pakistan… In some countries, women may be victims of honor killings, acts of violence, generally murder, committed against them by one or more members of their family - husband, father, brother - or a close - a partner, for example. The reason ? Behavior perceived as dishonorable to them, their family or the community to which they belong.
In Turkey, damage to honor can take very different forms:walking in front of your husband, talking or saying hello to a man in the street, looking out the window, conversing too long with a third party, coming home late Or go to the cinema. Committed in private and often disguised as suicide, this ancient practice is already attested in ancient Rome. Today, according to the United Nations Population Fund, more than 5,000 honor killings are reported every year worldwide.
Homicide • Homicide is as old as mankind. 430,000 years ago, at La Sima de Los Huesos (Spain), a hominid struck its victim - whose skull was found smashed - and mortally wounded it. But the notion of crime, its gravity and the scale of penalties are relative to each society. In the Middle Ages, in France, the most frequent homicide followed a quarrel in response to an insult; quarrel that can degenerate into "hot fight" and result in human death. Considered as just revenge in a civilization of honour, this type of homicide, which generally occurs in a public place and between people who know each other, was not penalized until late (late 13 e -beginning of the 14 e century). On the other hand, the "murders" - premeditated homicides committed by surprise (ambush), between the sunset and the sunrise - were worth hanging preceded by infamy (to wither the reputation of the culprit) and the hurdle. Over the centuries, homicide has become rarer... with one invariant all the same:the culprit generally knows his victim.
Homosexuality • Condemned in the Old Testament, homosexuality is no less timeless and universal. In ancient Egypt, "to copulate with a passive partner" is mentioned in the Book of the Dead as a wrongdoing. And in the tale of the Adventures of Horus and Seth , the second god tries to sodomize the first to humiliate him in front of the other deities. However, no text that has come down to us mentions any condemnation of these practices. In ancient Greece, there was no dominant "heterosexual" norm. Society confining women to the domestic sphere while exalting the naked male body, male loves are more rewarding, in wealthy circles, than female conquests. Among the Romans, sexuality was phallocentric.
Sapphic love affairs, considered shameful, are not legally punished. On the other hand, a male citizen who allows himself to be penetrated by another (thus accepting to be treated as a woman, in the Roman spirit) is defiled and loses his condition as a man (vir) . In the West, male homosexuality was condemned from the establishment of Christianity in Rome, sexual relations outside marriage and without procreative aims being morally condemned. In the Middle Ages, the culprits of "crimes against nature" - which include homosexuality and sodomy, or sexual acts devoid of procreative purpose (we speak of "buggery" , equated with heresy) -, are doomed to the stake.
Many centuries later, when the term "homosexual" appears - probably in 1869 -, those who engage in such practices will still often be considered abnormal, sick, even perverse or monstrous. If the crime of sodomy was abolished in France in 1791, homosexuality will not be decriminalized until 1982.
Incest • In 1981, a Japanese man guilty of killing and devouring a Dutch student declared:"I could not have eaten a Japanese girl, that would have been incest." Glacial example that proves how much the definition and extent of incest vary according to the representation that each society has of kinship. In ancient Egypt, unions between cousins and cousins are frequent, and attested, in the monarchy, between brothers and sisters.
In Rome, considered a crime against morality and the divine order, incest (from the Latin incestum , sacrilege) is strictly prohibited. One exception, however, again aristocratic:in 49, to retain power within the imperial family, the Senate voted a decree authorizing the Emperor Claudius to marry his niece Agrippina. In the Lower Empire (193-476), incest was punished by capital punishment, the father-daughter relationship being undoubtedly the most hated. In the Middle Ages, it was beheading or the stake that was promised to incestuous parents. King Robert II (972-1031) was excommunicated by Pope Gregory V for having married his cousin Bertha, a third degree relative. In France, incest committed on a minor has been officially prohibited since 2016. A restrictive sentence, which seems to implicitly authorize incestuous practices by those over 18.
Infanticide • The condemnation of infanticide seems to depend on the status of the child - and of the woman - in society. In ancient Greece, the father has his life and can therefore refuse to raise it. The mother then drops him off at a crossroads, leaving him with only slim chances of survival. In Sparta, a council of elders examined infants, the most fragile being thrown into the precipice of Mount Taygetos (Peloponnese). The Roman child, as long as he is a minor, also belongs to his father, who can therefore get rid of him. In the Middle Ages, the very young child was considered sacred if he had been baptized. If infanticide remains marginal, it is nonetheless the crime for which women are most often sentenced to death. In Metz, in 1495, an 18-year-old mother guilty of having thrown her child against a wall, then into a well, had her hand cut off before being burned alive. At 16 th century, the one who "killed" her child could be hanged or strangled in public. Since that time, in France, tens of thousands of women have reportedly been brought to justice for this crime. However, "infanticide" disappeared from the Penal Code in 1994. Like any murder of a minor under the age of fifteen, that of a child at birth is punishable by life imprisonment.
Parricide • To repress this crime against nature which consists in murdering one's father, mother (we also speak of matricide) or another of their ascendants, societies have not lacked imagination. The ancient Egyptians drove reeds into the body of the culprit before throwing it on a pyre of thorns. Famous ancient parricide who did not fail to shock public opinion:Nero, sending a sicarius to stab his mother Agrippina, too ambitious for his taste... An exception because the Romans considered it the most impure of crimes. Attack against the order established by the gods, he is punished with the culleus , designed as a rite of purification:the culprit is enclosed in a bag with a monkey, a dog, a rooster and sometimes a snake, then thrown into the nearest stream. Less severe, the Catholic Church offers parricide, from the 7 e century, a penitential pilgrimage, sometimes carried out with the ankles bound by iron bonds or heavy stones. In 18 e France century, the jurists are unanimous on the sentence to be applied:the parricide son has his fist cut off - this symbolic punishment disappears in 1832 - before being broken, then burned. The girl is hanged and then also burned. Today, the murder of a legitimate ascendant or of an adoptive father or mother is punishable by life imprisonment.
Pedophilia • It was only at the end of the 19 e century that pedophilia (from paîs , child and philein , to love with friendship) arouses collective indignation. The rise of the press then contributed to highlighting the sexual assaults on children, which had been largely ignored until then. But the concept of pedophilia differs from the ancient notion of pederasty (from erastes , in love, derived from erân , desire sexually, and pais , child), which designates the amorous desire of an adult citizen for a young boy (erómenos ). A relationship in no way condemned in Athens, as long as it is conceived as a sexual initiation for educational purposes. In Rome, sexual relations are tolerated regardless of age with young males with feminine features, the pueri delicati ("delicate children"). But these slaves were not considered full men. In France, officially hated under the Ancien Régime, the rape of children was condemned by law, but prosecutions were rare until the end of the 18 e century, where sensitivity is growing with regard to the suffering of the youngest. According to Article 227-25 of the Penal Code, sexual assault committed by an adult on a minor aged fifteen (or less), without violence, coercion, threat or surprise, is punishable by five years' imprisonment and 75 000 euros fine.
Regicide • The assassination (or attempted assassination), the death sentence or the execution of a king is the supreme crime. Because in a divine right monarchy, attacking the king is like attacking God. Robert-François Damiens is the last regicide condemned to quartering in public square after much torture. On January 5, 1757, he stabbed King Louis XV. Condemned to capital punishment for the crime of lèse-majesté and parricide, he underwent the torture of pincers in the Place de Grève, and the executioner poured into his wounds molten lead, oil and burning pitch-resin, wax and sulfur melted together. Then he is quartered, his body burned, his ashes thrown to the wind. His birthplace is destroyed and his family condemned to perpetual banishment.
Suicide • If, among the Mayas, killing oneself allowed access to paradise, suicide appears almost everywhere else as a reprehensible act, and it is condemned by Christianity, Buddhism or Islam. In the Middle Ages, this crime against oneself is a sin that dooms you to Hell. From the year one thousand, in the West, the suicide is no longer buried in the cemetery, and the property of his family can be confiscated. Some cultures, however, viewed this act as a means of avoiding dishonor. In medieval China, women wrongly accused of adultery disembowelled themselves to prove that they were not the fruit of guilty love. From there would come the Japanese ritual of seppuku, appeared at 12 th century. It could be executed by a warrior who committed suicide in public to avoid falling into the hands of the enemy, by a noble lady to share the fate of a husband condemned to death or having suffered seppuku himself, or to protest against an unwanted marriage.
In France, suicide has not been legally condemned since 1791. Previously, "corpse trials" sometimes took place, the bodies of suicides being condemned to undergo infamous exposures.
Rape • Since 1980, article 332 of the Penal Code has defined rape - the term dates from the 17 e century - as "any act of sexual penetration, of whatever nature, committed on the person of another by violence, coercion, or surprise" . In Rome, the rape of a married woman condemned her family to dishonour. If the rapist was seen as an unworthy man, the woman was guilty of having aroused his desire… In the Middle Ages, the aggressor of a virgin could escape punishment by marrying his victim, if she is of a lesser rank raised, or by endowing it. The punishment is proportional to the social status of the victim. For the rape of a servant? A simple fine. For that of a married woman? Castration, even hanging. At 15 th century, pecuniary penalties are the most frequent. The Old Regime considered rape a less serious crime than theft. We will have to wait until the end of the 19 e century so that the moral violence suffered by the victim is taken into account. Every year, in France, it is estimated that 62,000 women are victims of rape or attempted rape... That is 170 every day.
This article is from the magazine Sciences et Avenir Hors-série n°194 "Crimes et Châtiments" dated July-August 2018.
By Laureen Bouyssou