law

"Articles like the ones just cited [Article 158] are also valuable sources on Serbian social history. However, they must be used with caution. For a series of laws is not the same type of source as a visitor's description of a society. A law code does not describe how things actually functioned but only how they ought to have functioned. In some cases articles may have been based on customary laws; in such cases the articles' contents were probably generally observed or practiced and thus can be taken as evidence about actual practices and conditions. However, an article could also reflect an innovation, a reform the ruler was trying to bring about through legislation. In this case it would not have reflected existing customs and we must then ask, was the ruler successful in realizing his reform or did it remain a dead letter? Thus a law code may at times more accurately depict an ideal than reality. And since certain—perhaps many—articles in Dusan's code may have been attempts to legislate change, attempts which may or may not have been successful (and even if successful in one place, possibly not in others), we must always be careful and avoid leaping to the conclusion that this or that article describes the way things were done in fourteenth-century Serbia."

"Any poor woman Unable to litigate Or defend herself Shall choose an attorney Who shall speak on her behalf.The poorest hemp-spinstress Shall be as free as a priest."

"Commoners shall have no council. If anybody is found participating in council, let his ears be cut off, and let the leaders be singed."

"the ringleader was a man she recognized — the son of a government minister. She says he was the most brutal"

"I was fighting them off so much that they tied my legs and arms together. They were drinking a lot, and they would spill the alcohol in my eyes"

"The guards were shocked to see a bleeding naked woman with wild hair holding a piece of metal," she says. "So they opened the gate for me and I just ran out"

"They raped me again really early in the morning on the third day. They were totally drunk. A lot of them just passed out."

"For two days this happened to me"

"And they would kick my head with their boots."

"the men would come in groups of three and repeatedly rape her"

"[The neighbors] put me in a taxi, paid the fare, and I told the taxi driver to take me to the hotel [where the journalists are staying]"

"I was in a big room with the other woman. They were raping her, too, but she wasn't fighting back so they didn't tie her up. I asked the other woman to please try to untie me. ... It took awhile to convince the other woman to help me"

"Every time he would try to rape me, I would push him away with my legs, and he would scratch my thighs from both sides to force me"

"History books are full of grim examples of torture, punishment, and execution. Even the Romans, who are often heralded for their supposed civility, were well-versed in cruel and inhumane ways to end another person’s life, from crucifixion to the notorious bronze screaming bull."

"While and followed their father's footsteps to , (regarded, in the absence of the disabled George, as second in age) left for a new life, as the adopted heir to a wealthy, childless couple who could offer hims great prospects. Edward's benefactor was of in , son of the kinsman who had presented the Steventon living to the Revd . The unofficial adoption of children for social advantage — so strange to twenty-first-century sensibilities — was by no means uncommon in Jane Austen's time: in her own fiction it would be central to the plot in two of her six novels, with being sent to live with the haughty Bertrams, in ', and becoming the adoptive heir of his rich aunt in '. In 's case, the arrangement worked well."

"... if offspring of poor parents, adopted when newly born into well-to-do and well-educated families, turn out markedly different from the birthright members of those families then the presumption is that the dullness, of whichever is the duller, is a saturated growth. If on the other hand they all turn out much alike there is no proof that growth is saturated for any of them. There remains the presumption that the conditions have been much alike for all the members of one family and we get a more uncertain but still useful comparison of native worth, as pointed out above. A thorough study of a hundred such cases of adopted children would do more to reveal the nature of the poorer than statistics of 100,000 poor persons brought up in poverty."

"When you are adopted, the desire to search for your parents can suddenly seem unquenchable and the curiosity has to be sated. That's when it becomes dangerous. It is an oddity that many adopted people embark on the search just when they have settled, finally, on an adult identity. I suppose they feel that now they can. Then the findings of the search throw everything into chaos."

"In , only children ... may be adopted ... Adoption is usually associated with the desire to nurture and protect the child as if one's own, and s or illegitimate children are the most frequent candidates for adoption. ... This has little in common with adoption among the . ... Those given in adoption are mostly adults ... Very few adoptions are directly attested. Roman legal writings are one of our best sources of evidence for the actual practice of adoption among the Romans; inscriptions are insufficiently specific for certainty in detecting adoptions, and the adoptions mentioned in literary sources are numbered in tens rather than hundreds. There is even less direct evidence about the reasons for adoption. Of the adoptions that are mentioned in literary sources, those in successive imperial families are not entirely typical of Roman society at large, since they generally have a specifically dynastic and political purpose. As in private families, however, a definite preference is shown for adopting persons related by blood, or at least by marriage, where any are available. This is the case between and , among the and the , and is most evident among the ."

"It was also the only country in the world to allow fully privatised adoptions from 1977 to 2008. At the height of the adoption boom, one in 100 children born in Guatemala was placed for adoption with a family abroad. “Some countries export bananas,” one lawyer who arranged private adoptions told the in 2016. “We exported babies.” Guatemala is often cited as the worst-case scenario for what can go wrong when adoptions are commercialised and children are sent from poorer countries to wealthier ones."

"The use of human adoptees to separate nature from nurture was first suggested by (1912–1913). During the early decades of the century, interest in adoptees first centered around the question of nature and nurture in human intelligence, which was stimulated in part by the development at that time of tests to measure intelligence. The adoption strategy involved a study of adoptees, their biologic parents, and their adoptive parents. As adoptions developed in the early years of this century, children generally separated at birth from biologic parents and birth environment were placed with nonrelatives who legally adopted and raised the children. In nature-nurture studies the focus of the investigation was usually a trait, behavior, or other characteristic—as in the early studies during the teens and twenties of this century when the focus was on intelligence. The crux of the technique involves comparisons between adoptees and both sets of parents, biologic and adoptive."

"I'm writing to you from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India on behalf of our more than two million members and supporters to request that you delete Section 28 of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, which allows any animal to be killed in any manner for religion... We hope you will agree that Section 28 is an aberration in the land of 'ahimsa', 'karuna', and, increasingly, modern technology and where Article 51A(g) of the Constitution of India requires compassion for all living creatures."

"The mother is always certain."

"Bastardus est triplex; Manser, incestuose natus"

"Bastardus est qui nascitur ante matrimonium. Nothus, natus ex patre nobili et matre ignobili: Spurius, natus ex matre nobili et patre ignobili."

"Cui pater est populus, pater est fibi nullus & Omnis. Cui pater est populus, non habet ille patrem."

"Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great."

"For further I could say, “This man’s untrue”, And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; Heard where his plants in others’ orchards grew, Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling; Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; Thought characters and words merely but art, And bastards of his foul adulterate heart."

"SIR: One of your correspondents says the illegitimate child will always be an outcast under moral law; which sounds pretty bad for moral law. It is worth remembering that good men have repeatedly told us that there are no illegitimate children, but only illegitimate parents. And it requires no superhuman vision and no superlative righteousness for anyone to see that an ideal which determines always to punish forever an innocent human being for that of which he is in no respect guilty is a detestable sham and a reproach to any “society” or “civilization.”What “we call” virtue or what “we call” vice is of very little consequence in comparison with the rights of a human soul and a human body—and complacent artificial codes to the contrary notwithstanding. Every child of illegitimate parents should receive from society more than a just measure of consideration, help and respect. There is nothing in the Christian religion to forbid this, whatever there may be in so-called moral and legal statutes. We are surely to be pitied, if with every variety of evil all about us, we are persuaded that the “immorality” of existence of any human life is something for us to persecute and oppress."

"KENT Is not this your son, my lord?GLOUCESTER His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blushed to acknowledge him, that now I am brazed to it.KENT I cannot conceive you.GLOUCESTER Sir, this young fellow's mother could: whereupon she grew round-wombed, and had, indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?KENT I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.GLOUCESTER But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged."

"Those which were begotten of married women were called Nothi because they seem to be his children whom the marriage dothshow, but are not: . . . . . pater est quem nuptiæ demonstrant."

"I rejoice to think that since the days of Queen Elizabeth, our laws have been so far humanized that a bastard child is no longer a mere thing to be shunned by an overseer,—whose existence is unrecognised until it becomes a pauper, and whose only legitimate home is a workhouse, that it is no longer permissible to punish its unfortunate mother with hard labour for a year, nor its father with a whipping at the cart's tail; but that even an illegitimate child may find itself a member of some honest family, and that the sole obligation now cast upon its parents is that each may be compelled to bear his and her own fair share of the maintenance and education of the unfortunate offspring of their common failing."

"All sorts of terms are used to indicate this condition, but the word "bastard" is not used anything like so often as its various synonyms; this is as it should be, as the word (of doubtful etymology) is more properly applied to the "bye-blows" of the great than to the produce of proletarian promiscuity. The earliest known application of the term is to the Conqueror, who styled himself, "Ego Wilhelmus Cognomine Bastardus.""

"Much more of Foundlings, where neither Father nor Mother are known."

"Nothus and Spurius are certainly not used in parish registers in the strict sense above defined, in fact, the terms used varied more according to the righteous wrath of the recording parson, who, perhaps, thereby expressed his disgust at the offence; mark the gentleness of this: William, son of Lord Talbot, per Dutchess of Beaufort, ut asseritur, born Nov. 1st, 1743, bapt. Mar. 24th, 1743/4. (St. Pancras.)And the severity of these:— 1590. John, the son of a strumpet born at Ockleys, bapt. May 28th. (Kington, Worc.) 1697. May 10th. Wm. son of Mary Hewett, the whore, bapt. (Stony Stratford.) 1774. May 22nd. Mary, the beast boarn dautr. of Mary More was bapt. (Huddington.) 1788. Sarah, dau. of Jane Beament (prostitute), Oct. 5th bapt. (Tarrant Hinton.)Other methods of expression are:— 1560. Bridget and Elizabeth, the daughters of adultery, bapt. Jan. 1st. (Chesham.) 1567. Alice, daught. of Margery Meretrix, bapt. Dec. 25th. (Chesham.) 1615. Arthur Cuthbert filius cuiusdam circumforanei, bapt. April 15th. (Woughton.) 1625. June 29th. Lucia f. (ut putatur) Thos. Cock and Eliz. Henbury, alias Pierse, alias Vaughan, meretricis eius et impurissimi scorti, bapt. (Hopton Castle.) 1669. Margaret, the daughter (spuria) of David de la Hay and Jane his concubine, was bapt. Sept. 12th. (Glasbury.) 1702. Dec. 20th. Sarah, illeg. child of Hugh Isaack's wid. by an anonymous father, bapt. (Selattyn.)Particulars about paternity are very common, for sharp search was always made by parish officers after the fathers of illegitimate children to prevent expense to the rates. 1603. Hughe Pigot, a Bastard son of Margaret Pigot begotten as she sayeth by Michael Harrison an hostler dwelling wth one Mr. ffroome in London near Newgate att the signe of the seriante Head xped xxxj Julie. (Mark Fryston.) Katheren Heath, ye daughter of Geoffry Heath yf ye mother of ye child hath fathered it right, was babt. 22nd August, 1613. (Banstead.) 1634. Ann, ye daughter of Joane Money & John Bayley ye supposed father begotten in fornication was baptized March 15th. (Morden.) 1704. 26th Sept. Jane, ye dautr. of Susannah Newman, ye father unknown, bap. (Bere Hacket.) 1787. Oct. 28th. Mary, illeg. daugh. of Mary Webb was bapt. (P). Her Mother said she was then fourteen years old. (Canon Frome.) 1766. Mar. 3rd. Sarah, the Bastard Dau. of Sarah Smallwood of Baton, Widow, aged about 50 years was bapt. (Bletchley.)The above examples are selections only from the numberless entries of similar nature; the forms, words and expressions used are of very great variety. On the whole, as the average entry of a "bastard" contains more detail than that of the legitimate, the genealogist should pay careful attention to these cases and see if the child died, for the mortality among illegitimate infants was much higher than the general infant death rate."

"EDMUND Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate: fine word,—legitimate! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards!"

"There may be illegitimate parents—there can be no illegitimate child."

"[T]he house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose."

"Every man's house is his castle."

"And the law of England has so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man's house, that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with immunity: agreeing herein with the sentiments of ancient Rome, as expressed in the works of Tully; quid enim sanctius, quid omni religione munitius, quam domus uniuscuiusque civium? For this reason no doors can in general be broken open to execute any civil process; though, in criminal causes, the public safety supersedes the private. Hence also in part arises the animadversion of the law upon eaves-droppers, nuisancers, and incendiaries: and to this principle it must be assigned, that a man may assemble people together lawfully without danger of raising a riot, rout, or unlawful assembly, in order to protect and defend his house; which he is not permitted to do in any other case."

"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter — all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!"

"What more sacred, what more strongly guarded by every holy feeling, than a man's own home?"

"By the laws of England, every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. No man can set his foot upon my ground without my licence, but he is liable to an action, though the damage be nothing; which is proved by every declaration in trespass, where the defendant is called upon to answer for bruising the grass and even treading upon the soil. If he admits the fact, he is bound to show by way of justification, that some positive law has empowered or excused him. The justification is submitted by the judges, who are to look into the books; and if such a justification can be maintained by the text of the statute law, or by the principles of common law. If no excuse can be found or produced, the silence of the books is an authority against the defendant, and the plaintiff must have judgment."

"Quid enim sanctius, quid omni religione munitius, quam domus unusquisque civium?"

"Domus tutissimum cuique refugium atque receptaculum."

"In recent times, media trials have become more important than trials in courts. Our objectivity has given way to systematic undermining of facts. It took us about five thousand years to create diverse and deeply profound versions of the Mahabharat and the Ramayana, but in our present era, dubious versions of each contemporary tragedy, or farce, are ready within minutes. Truth, at various levels, has been the first casualty of the media. Infact, reality gets distorted so rapidly that it becomes unrecognizable."

"…There are no digests or codes of laws existing in Indostan: the Tartars who conquered this country could scarcely read or write and when they found it impossible to convert them to Mahomedanism, left the Gentoos at liberty to follow their own religion…"

"Although the notion of absolute power admits of nothing which can be sanctified from its grasp, whence the king, as in other despotic States, may, if he pleases, become heir to any man in his kingdom: yet custom has not established this right to him in Indostan; and these perhaps are the reasons why neither the Moors or Gentoos have been subjected to it. 1. All the political institutions of the Gentoos are so blended with the idea of religion, that this is generally effected where these are concerned. The softness of manners which these people receive from the climate, has fixed all their attention to the solaces of a domestic life. There are not more tender parents, or better masters, in the world: such a people will make wills in favour of their offspring: and the prince finds himself restrained by policy from establishing a right so utterly shocking to the nature and disposition of the subject. He is likewise restrained by religion: the name of God invoked in the testament of a Gentoo, gives it as sacred an authority as with those who have better notions of a deity; and the Brachman is too much interested, as father of a family, to sanctify a practice which would affect his own property. Thus the Gentoo princes were never seen to assert this right, excepting when avarice had got so far the ascendant, as not only to confound all their notions of policy, but even to make them look on religion as the prejudice of education. 2. The Moors, in the first outrages of conquest, doubtless possessed themselves of all kinds of property: but when the Gentoos would not be converted, and were left to the observance of their own rites, the right of testaments was continued, and still subsists amongst them. The Gentoos, by their subtilty and application, find many means of gaining wealth under the Moors; and this wealth they devolve by will to their male children. The obstacles which these may meet with in taking possession, will be explained hereafter. 3. The idea of being fellow-conquerors; the complacency arising from perpetual victories; the immense wealth which these conquests afforded; might have been the causes which prevented the first Mahomedan princes of Indostan, from establishing amongst those of their own religion, this utmost effort of absolute power. They were contended with knowing that they had at all times the power to seize, without declaring that they intended to inherit every man’s property. 6. …The different methods of inheritance amongst the Gentoos, are settled by their religion, according to the different casts by which they are distinguished. In general, the females are recommended to the care of the brothers; and these are commonly ordered to divide equally: sometimes first cousins, especially if born under the same roof, share equally with the brothers: sometimes the first wife of the deceased is intrusted with the management of the whole estate during life – a custom attended with no consequences prejudicial to the children, as she cannot enter into a second marriage. It is always recommended by the parent, that the house, if in a way of trade, be not divided; and as surely it happens, that divisions ensure amongst the heirs."

"Imitation has conveyed the unhappy system of oppression which prevails in the government of Indostan throughout all ranks of the people, from the highest even to the lowest subject of the empire. Every head of a village calls his habitation the Durbar, and plunders of their meal and roots the wretches of his precinct: from him the Zemindar extorts the small pittance of silver, which his penurious tyranny has scraped together; the Phousdar seizes upon the greatest share of the Zemindar’s collections, and then secures the favour of his Nabob by voluntary contributions, which leave him not possessed of the half of his rapines and exactions: the Nabob fixes his rapacious eye on every portion of wealth which appears in his province, and never fails to carry off part of it: by large deductions from these acquisitions, he purchases security from his superiors, or maintains it against them at the expense of a war. Subject to such oppressions, property in Indostan is seldom seen to descend to the third generation."

"That the legislature discriminates against Hindus is not news—I have provided enough examples. Plenty more exist of minority appeasement at the cost of the majority, but what is to be done when the judiciary singles out the Hindus? What is the recourse then? What is the recourse when you find that the fine lady who stands atop our temples of justice belligerent, when you find her sword that is pointing to the skies blunted and her blindfold perforated, when you find her scales rusted? What is the recourse? There is none. Because while the Supreme Court decides to remove discrimination from Islam, it is stopped from doing so by the Parliament. When it decides to remove perceived discrimination from Hinduism, it is encouraged to do so by the Parliament."

"As regards the laws, they are scarcely observed at all, for the administration is absolutely autocratic, but there are books of law, which are in charge of their lawyers, the Kazis. Their laws contain such provisions as hand for hand, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; but who will excommunicate the Pope? And who would dare to ask a Governor “Why do you rule us this way or that way? Our Law orders thus.” The facts are very different, although in every city there is a kachhahri, or royal court of justice, where the Governor, the Diwan, the Bakhshi, the Kotwal, the Kazi, and other officers sit together daily, or four days in the week. Here all disputes are disposed of, but not until avarice has had its share. All capital cases, such as thefts, murders, or crimes are finally disposed of by the Governor, if the criminals are poor and unable to pay, and the sweepers drag them out to execution with very little ceremony. In the case of other offences the criminals are seldom or never executed; their property is merely confiscated for the Governor and Kotwal. Ordinary questions of divorce, quarrels, fights, threats, and the like, are in the hands of the Kotwal and the Kazi. One must indeed be sorry for the man who has to come to judgment before these godless ‘unjudges’; their eyes are bleared with greed, their mouths gape like wolves for covetousness, and their bellies hunger for the bread of the poor; everyone stands with hands open to receive, for no mercy or compassion can be had except on payment of cash. This fault should not be attributed to judges or officers alone, for the evil is a universal plague; from the least to the greatest, right up to the King himself, everyone is infected with insatiable greed, so that if one has any business to transact with Governors or in palaces, he must not set about it without “the vision of angels’, for without presents he need expect very little answer to his petitions. Our honourable employers need not deign to be surprised at this, for it is the custom of the country."