Note 765 — Chapter V · EARLY HISTORY OF DIVORCE

Möllendorff, Das chin. Familienrecht, 32. In China a man is legally incapable of adultery. If the husband slay either the man or the woman taken in flagrante delicto, he must do so on the instant; "though it is also allowable for the husband to kill the adulterer outside the house, if it be in chase. But if the husband first ties up the adulterer, and then kills him, he will be guilty of a transportable offence.... If the husband kills the wife afterwards, he will be liable to three years' transportation and 100 blows."—Alabaster, Chinese Criminal Law, 187, 188. If the paramour kills the husband, the wife is strangled, whether she knew of the crime or not, provided the husband has not consented to the adultery. Grace is shown the woman only "when the murder was sudden and unpremeditated;" but then only in case that she "fly to the rescue, and give the alarm, and do her best to bring the murderer to justice by denouncing him to the authorities."—Alabaster, op. cit., 194. The price of the guilty wife sold as a concubine falls to the state: Möllendorff, 32.