Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1870-06-08
Wounded Honor.

1t is in the incapacity of a truly hon
orabe man to he dshonored by another
that civilized mind sees the exquisite
absurdity of what was called the code of
of honor. 1t put the best men at the
mercy Of the worst. Here, for instance,
was a huIking bully and dead shot, who
took a dislike to some man infinitely his
superior. He met him at table, and threw
glass of wine in his face, or he spat at
him, or he pulled his nose. and it was
straightway held that the honor of the
assaulted man had been injured, and could
only be repaired by giving the bully the
chance to murder him and ruin his fami-
ly. Nothing more preposterous is con-
ceivable; and it was this silly theory of
honor that so long perplexed, and, to
certain degree, still perplexes, ciyiiza-
ton ....
This theory of honor said "If man
pulls your nose, he has mortally insulted
you, and nothing but blood can atone.-
Ho for the field of honorw Common
sense say: eff man pulls your nose, he
breaks the peace. Call policeman, and
--Ho for the station-house !"
OF course, if you don't choose to call
policeman, but instinctively do your
best to thrash the bully, nobody will COM
plain. But you arc not dishonored by
him, even though he pulled your nose off,
ard, when you tried to punish him, doub-
led you up and left you senscess in the
gutter.
Could drunken bully, or sober bull
ly, dishonor Sir Isaac Newtown by pull
ing his nose? Would Mr.. Bryant be dis
honored if somebody gave him the lie ?
1t is by lying that he would be dishonor-
ed, not by somebody's saying he had. IT,
therefore, every man be the guardian of
his own honor, and that honor can be
touched only by himself, it is idle to speak
of somebody else as dishonoring him.--
Somebody else may exasperate him--may
madden him, by exciting his jealousy, as
Iago maddened Othelo--but somebody
else can not dishonor him; and, in such
cases as we are considering, honor is al
ways invoked. and the Injury to honor is
deliberately ALLEGED, because it is univer4
sally felt that if jealousy is to be allowed
to shoot at discretion, there will be good
deal more shooting than society can safe
ly tolerate.
All intelligent people will agree that
the honor of the marriage tie must, in
I, reason, be equal upon both sides but ey-
cry body knows that it is not considered
so in fact. Take any average jury that
would acquit husband for shooting a
man who had "injured- his honor" and it
would wink at the same husband injuring
his wife's honor in precisely the same
way.
These are subjects not to be easily men,
toned but they are well understood, and
it is not for men, as class, to vociferate
too loudly about matrimonial honor.
Gibbon caustically says Of the goddess
who presided over the peace Of marriages (:
Her epithet of Viripoca, the appeaser
of husbans, too clearly indicates on which
side submission and repentance were al
ways expected" And was the olense
supposed to come usually from the same
side ?
The honor of marriage is mutual. Hus-
band and wife are alike bound by it. But
the DETECTION of either dsbonors that one
only, and not the other. The other may
be sorely gricvcd and humiliated--may
be even excited by passion to what is call