The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-06-16

The annals Of crime in our country furnish in
stances of a similar nature to the Sickles tragedy, but
We doubt If any among them all have ever attracted
. greater degree of public attention. The denoue-
ment Of the trial which was progressing at Washing
ton ut latest advices, will strongly disappoint public
expectation if it does not end in the full acquittai OF
Sickles. For. however little doubt there may be as
to his real guilt in the eye of the law, public sent-
ment makes the verdict, and to its behest the law In
our country has come to be subservient in such cases.
We shall not now discuss the proprietyo Of perpetuating
this sentiment, and of giving to the husband, whose
domestic happiness has been destroyed by the seducer,
the free and unbridled license to administer the
death penalty to the destroyer. Nevertheless, while
we are willing to admit the seeming right and justice
which attaches 10 this method Of summary vengeance
while we are willing to admit that every man VINO
seeks 70 rob another Of that love which has been
pliehted to him for all time at the altar, invites a fate
ike that which has bofallen Philip Barton Key. and
sinks into the grave unwept and unhonored by the
world, there are still some suggestions which arise In
connection with a consideration of the subject, which
serve to point the true moral which these fearful les
sons should teach to society at large, the world
over.
1t is the custom, originated and sanctioned by CON-
mon public consent, TO pronounce the seducer guilty
of n crime which nothing but death can wipe out,
and for the injured husband to put away from him
the shamed, despised, and erring wife of his bosom,
TO be Stunned by the world, and never again TO De
received back, the vows broken asunder never again
to be healed 1t is right and proper that 1t should
be so-it is the just and inexorable law of society.
But there Is n singular inequality IL tHiS uiSpchS"Ioh
Of the law of society which it is difficult to reconcile
with this custom. This law exists for the welfare and
protection of the husband, who, 1t would naturally De
inferred. is always the wronged and the suffering one
Or, in other words, there is neither written or nat
ural law for the punishment of the wrongs inflicted
upon the wife by the ~infdelity of the husband, while,
if we reverse the proposition, we find the death PEN
atty written plainly down as the means to be resorted
to by the husband to wipe out his disgrace
The pure, spotless, uncontaminated and virtnous
wife, who would lay down her life rather than break
the plighted vows which bind her 10 her husband,
however conscious she may be that her virtue and
her fidelity is not reciprocated-that those VOWS are
by the husband, who has sworn to love, hoh2r and
obey, openly and shamefully violated, must walk
through life and bear her burden patiently, or seek
the only remedy known to society, under the heading
of the statute divorce laws. He still walks abroad In
the light of day; received in full fellowship with
members OF society, who would not think of making
his evil-doings the cause of driving him away from
their daily association. The wronged and broken
hearted wife who finds herself thus shamefully robbed
Of that love which she fondly dreamed was all her
own, cannot go forth armed with the dagger or the
pistol, and strike down the guilty one, who has thus
taken that love from her. Oh, no Society has
never given its sanction to this mode of proceeding.
1t has made the statute law apply to the bleeding,
broken hearts of wronged wives. and told them TO
seek consolation in the courts of justice; while it has
armed the wronged husband with the weapon OF
death, and bid him use it.
Is there not a radical wrong in this? Is it not
right and just that in6ielity ON the part of either the
husband or the wife should be weighed in the same
scale; that the crime should be considered as deep
and as damning in one as in the other? BY what
law, human and divine, shall we estimate the broken
vows Of the husband more lightly than those Of the
wife, We lay it down as an automatic principle,
that the man who iniicts this great wrong upon the
of his bosom. deserves the same measure Of con-
at the hands Of the world that Is usually
bestowed upon the guilty wife. The obligation OF
fidelity to the marriage vows rests none the less
upon the husband than the wife. Each, in
the presence of God. plight their sacred troth to the
and before God, whether before society or not,
will each be held in the same degree accountable.
:. Thou shalt not commit adultery" was written to
apply as soIefraly to the one as the other sex. show
ing conclusively that It is an error of human law,
not of divine, that has caused man to be held less
culpable than woman, by the common sanction Of the
worlds customs.
Who, then, has been dishonored most-Daniel E.
Sickles, or the thousands of patient and long-suher-
ing wives, who live in the despairing consciousness
that the husbands of their hearts, had-lke the
and abandoned woman who has caused all
distresses and imbrued his hand in blood-been
az false to them and their sworn VOWS, as she has
been to those which she gave TO him, when she be-
came the wife Of his bosom:
In the estimation of the world it will be answered
that Mr.. Sickles rests under the greater dishonor,
and so it will probably remain for all time. But we
hold that there is a deep and n radical wrong IN this
custom. We hold, rs We have stated, that man ana
wife stand upon n perfect equality in all things per-
tanning TO the preservation of the marriage vows in
all their original chastity and purity and we fur
Their hold that, there are thousands and tens of thou
sands of shameless and guilty husbands, to-day, who
hold this miserable woman to be an object for them
to despise and scorn, who, in the estimation Of the
truly good and the virtuous, should be, as she has
been, banished forever from the ranks of leRitimately
society, and as she is, they should be
Stunned and scorned forever and for aye.--Aha Cal
yorniG-