THE PARRICIDE AND JUSTICE. An Historical Sketch.
BY CHARLES GREEN CUMSTON, M.D., Of Boston. IX glancing over the history of various na tions, it will be readily seen that the ex tension given to the word parricide varies, and that usually it includes crimes that one would be astonished to find .united under this rubric, if the etymology, which evidently sig nifies the murder of a father or a mother, should be accepted literally. Thus, for ex ample, at Rome all kinds of murders were in cluded under the word "parricidium,r but it is, nevertheless, true, as we shall show, that the law had special applications for the chastizement of those who killed their father or their mother. At a later date, the word par ricide became more precise in its meaning, and was confined to the murderer of mem bers of his family and a curious enumeration of crimes qualified as parricide will be found in a work entitled Praxis Rerum Criminalium, by Damhouder, who lived in the loth Cen tury.. This authority says that "Jurispru dence terms a parricide the murder perpe trated on relatives such as a father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, wife, daughter-inlaw, son-in-law, father-in-law, mother-inlaw, etc. and all those who by a direct con nection or by marriage may be assimilated to the preceding ones." At the present time, the word parricide has become still more limited in meaning, and may be defined for all practical purposes as the murder of legitimate, natural or adopted fathers or mothers or of any other legiti mate ascendant. The parricide is, conse quently, the murder of legitimate direct as cendants, no matter what may be their de gree, or persons holding a similar relation ship, such as natural or adopted parents. In antiquity several races were accus
tomed to kill their old, and this occursat the present time among the savage tribes;. but among all these people it is from love that the son kills his father, and it is filial piety that causes him to put an end to suf fering in order to send his parent to join the shades of his ancestors in a better world. Among these people the parricide is usually a precept of religion, and among certain races, both ancient and modern, it is just thissentiment of filial piety that causes children to eat the flesh of their parents, as Herodo tus told us of the Massagetœ, and as Letourreau has more recently shown of the Battasof Sumatra, who piously eat the bodies of their parents after having killed them. All these acts of savage tribes of the present time, which at first sight may appear revolt ing, simply indicate with what great respect they hold their ascendants. If now we turn to the civilized nations, it will be immediately seen that filial love is noless deep, but that on account of civilization it shows itself quite differently in the form of an instinctive and universal horror of the parricide. In Greece, for example, this hor ror is expressed in the popular legends. The pater familias was the direct and au thorized descendant of the protecting gods of the family, and he was the pontiff oí this re ligion, and for that very reason one can un derstand the respect that all members of the family had for him. Then again, when it is called to mind how great was the fear of the gods among the ancients, the exceptional rarity of the parricide can be easily imagined. This is so true that at a later date, when this antique cult of the ancestors disappeared, parricides began to increase in 'numbers. The respect for the creators was so intense
