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WHY MEN ARE HANGED
to give up her evil ways. But he was uncontrollably enraged by her insolent retort to his robuke. The scandalising answer was that, being herself young, she wanted a young man ; and as she could not leave her old husband and marry ilgain, she was compelled to go the way she was going. She further said that she was doing her duty to the husband-taking care of his household, looking after his physical welfare, etc. ; that it was he who was failing in his marital duty, and therefore it was absurd for him to accuse her of infidelity. He should not be a dog in the manger ; he should not object to her seeking elsewhere, in the only way possible under the given social conditions, what he could not give her.
That was an unheard of insult. It made the nld man see red ; and he killed her. Even after conviction, with at least ten years of rigorous imprisonment staring him grimly in the face, the old man was boiling with moral indignation. But one could easily see that it was not so much his moral sense as the sense of property that was outraged. The woman belonged to him. She had no business to give herself to a loafer and have the cheek to justify her action in such a brazen manner. She should have at least pretended faithfulness, as the token of formal admission of the husband's right of ownership, and then carry on with the young man clandestinely, if she were so incorrigibly
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