Wives, daughters and children, too, would be fair game. The very basis of civilized society would be undermined. Society would degenerate and descend to unthinkable depths. The assumption of the presidency has been justified under the much-abused term 'supreme national interest'. As a matter of fact, national interest is entirely a matter of definition.
Definitions differ according to perceptions and perceptions are a function of one's interests.
And so on. The military elite, too, defines national interest in the context of its own perceptions, which may not be in consonance with the perceptions of the people. The policy caused social dislocation on a massive scale and the alienation of the people of erstwhile East Pakistan. General Yahya Khan considered it in the supreme national interest to ignore the electoral verdict, launch a military operation and inflict enormous bloodshed. The policy led to the break-up of the country.