Note 252 — ACT III.
Reading edition
It was popularly supposed that a virgin might save a man from the gallows by offering to marry him. In Arden of Feversham, when the serving-man Michael promises to murder his master, Alice Arden says—“But Michael see you do it cunningly:” to which he replies:— “Why, say I should be took, I’ll ne’er confess That you know anything; and Susan, being a maid, May beg me from the gallows of the shrief.”
Alice bids him “trust not to that;” but he is convinced that all will be right:— “You cannot tell me; I have seen it, I.”
Many similar passages might be adduced to prove that this extraordinary belief prevailed. I suspect that we must go back to the ancients for an explanation. Plutarch in his life of Numa tells us that a vestal virgin, accidentally meeting a criminal on his way to execution, was entitled by law to give him life and liberty.—The curious Manx custom in regard to rape may be noticed in this connection. The injured woman was presented with a ring, a rope, and a knife. If the offender was a bachelor, the woman might marry him with the ring; if he was a married man, it was left to her discretion whether she should hang him with the rope or castrate him with the knife (an awkward dilemma—for the married man).