|
In the common law of crime in England and Wales, a common scold was a species of public nuisance—a troublesome and angry woman who broke the public peace by habitually arguing and quarreling with her neighbours. The Latin name for the offender, ''communis rixatrix'', appears in the feminine gender and makes it clear that only women could commit this crime. The offence, which was exported to North America with the colonists, was punishable by ducking: being placed in a chair and submerged in a river or pond. Although rarely prosecuted it remained on the statute books in England and Wales until 1967. ==The offence and its punishment== In the ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'', Blackstone says of this offence: The prescribed penalty for this offence involved dunking the convicted offender in water in an instrument called the "cucking stool". The cucking stool, according to Blackstone, eventually became known as a ''ducking stool'' by folk etymology. Other writers disagree with Blackstone's assertion equating the two sorts of punishment seat. The ''Domesday Book'' notes the use of a cucking stool at Chester, a seat also known as ''cathedra stercoris'', a "dung chair", whose punishment apparently involved exposing the sitter's buttocks to onlookers. This seat served to punish not only scolds, but also brewers and bakers who sold bad ale or bread, whereas the ducking stool dunked its victim into the water. Francois Maximilian Misson, a French traveller and writer, recorded the method used in England in the early 18th century: The ducking stool, rather than being fixed in position by the river or pond, could be mounted on wheels to allow the convicted woman to be paraded through the streets before punishment was carried out. Another method of ducking was to use the tumbrel, which consisted of a chair on two wheels with two long shafts fixed to the axles. This would be pushed into the ducking pond and the shafts would be released, tipping the chair up backwards and ducking the occupant. A scold's bridle, known in Scotland as a brank, consists of a locking metal mask or head cage that contains a tab that fits in the mouth to inhibit talking. Some have claimed that convicted common scolds had to wear such a device as a preventive or punitive measure. Legal sources do not mention them in the context of the punishment of common scolds, but there are anecdotal reports of their historical use as a public punishment. In 17th-century New England and Long Island, scolds or those convicted of similar offences—both men and women—could be sentenced to stand with their tongue in a cleft stick, a more primitive but easier-to-construct version of the scold's bridle, but the ducking stool also made the trip across the Atlantic.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「common scold」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|