Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Crime, Gender

    Compares the ease of 'wife-killing' with the difficulty of 'wife-murder' resulting from the tendency of juries and judges to exonerate the murderer on the grounds that it 'Sarved her right'. Considers the possibility of slowly killing one's wife, a method that severs the 'nuptial tie' without leading to imprisonment or heavy sentence. Believes this method 'is to administer quiet cruelty in small doses, and to keep it up, varying the treatment, if you like, by more energetic exhibitions of fist or stick, starvation or exposure, from time to time'. Insists that 'Ne quid nimis should be the motto of the uxoricide as of the physician'.