under the old Mosaic law ( Tord) punished by death. " If this thing be true and vir ginity be not found for the damsel, then they shall bring her to the door of her father's house, and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that she die." With the in troduction of the Roman rule in Palestine, before the beginning of the present era, the right to inflict capital punishment, which had always been sparingly exercised, was entirely taken away from the Jewish courts, and thereafter the husband's remedy for this offence was by divorce. When the husband became jealous of his wife and suspected her of marital infidelity, she was, under the law of the Tora, obliged to submit to the ordeal of the " bitter waters." Moved by the spirit of jealousy, the husband led her to the temple; the officiating priest uncovered her head, and placing her before the altar, handed her a cup of water in which some of the dust from the floor of the sanctuary had been dissolved; then, having first assured her that if innocent, she need not fear and would be unharmed by the ordeal, he charged her with a most solemn oath, by which if guilty she would be accursed bodily and spiritually; whereupon she drank the water. The purpose of the ordeal was to exact a confession from the guilty woman, while the innocent one had the assurance that the ordeal would leave her unharmed. If the husband had at any time been guilty of sexual immorality, it was thought that the bitter waters would have no effect, even though the wife were guilty, showing that the ethics of the Rabbis demanded the purity of the man as well as of the woman to be undefined.- About the time of the destruc tion of the temple (70 a.c.) adultery in creased, in consequence of the general demoralization brought about by the military invasion of the Romans and the devastating campaign against Jewish independence; therefore the Sanhedrin, under the presidency of Rabbi Jochanan ben Sakkai, abolished the ordeal entirely, since the temple had been destroyed and no priest could superintend
the rite elsewhere; and thereafter the woman who had committed adultery, or who had by her conduct raised a strong suspicion against her chastity, was divorced. A breach of a positive enactment of the Mosaic code, or an offence against Jewish customary law by the woman was deemed a sufficient ground for divorce. The Mishua explains this law as follows : " What is meant by a violation of the law of Moses? If, for example, she causes her husband to eat of forbidden food, if she does not set apart the heave offering (Hala), or if she breaks her vows, for a man cannot dwell with a serpent. And what constitutes a breach of customary law? If the wife goes out unveiled, if she exposes her person on the public highway, if she flirts with men. Rabbi Tarphon says " if she is a noisy woman; " that is, if she speaks in so loud a tone in her own house that the neigh bors can hear her, or if she uses indecent language. Adultery could technically be committed only by the wife; and the immorality of the husband was deemed an offence of an en tirely different character, and one which did not so essentially violate the nature and purpose of marriage. The penalty for a single act of adultery by the husband was the infliction of corporal punishment by the lash, and the presumption of law was that the first offence would also be the last; but if the offence was continued, the wife could sue for divorce on this ground. If the hus band refused to support the wife, the Court would, on her petition, compel him to do so; and if he persistently refused to obey the order, the Court would grant a divorce to the wife. And the difference between this law and the law of our States lies in the dif ferent conditions of the times. A woman anciently could not engage in any of the pursuits of life now open to the sex, in order to earn a livelihood, and the lack of the hus band's support obliged her to return to her father's house; inasmuch as this was prac tically a separation from the husband, a
