WIFE-WHIPPING A FELONY.
Mr. WILSON, of Ripley, returned Mr. Kimball's bill [H. R. 132] defining wife-whipping and prescribing punishment therefor, recommending that it be indefinitely postponed, and expressing the opinion that there is ample punishment for this oftence already provided by law.
page: 217[View Page 217]Mr. KIMBALL. It seems to me that the present legal penalty for assault and battery is not sufficient for this offence, and I trust in the goodheartedness of members for their votes on this bill. I know the law should be more strict than it is. In the county of Marion there are numerous offences of this kind that are passed over too lightly or disregarded altogether. And I have a letter from the county of Bartholomew alleging a number of cases there, which the penalty for assault and battery can't restrain, and the result is the separation of the parties. So, if you punish this offence adequately the courts will not be burdened with applications for divorce. I think members ought to vote for this bill, especially those who are expecting to get wives; and if all such do not vote for it they ought to be obliged to remain bachelors all the days of their life.
Mr. SMITH proposed to amend by inserting the words: "No man shall be allowed to whip his wife unless she needs it."
Mr. WILSON, of Ripley. Gentlemen should not confound the administration of the law with the law itself. The law now provides fine and imprisonment for this effense; but this bill makes it a felony. Under this bill there would be no alternative but the offender must go to the penitentiary. We can't legislate perfectly with reference to moral conduct. But I do not see why it should be a greater offense for a man to whip his own wife, than to whip his neighbor's wife, or for the wife to whip her husband. And there are extenuating circumstances. A man may be guilty of assault and battery, and yet it may be that he should not go to the penitentiary. The Committee considered that a fine and six months' imprisonment might suffice for an offense so simple as that of assault and battery.
Mr. KIMBALL. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred where a man whips his wife he ought to go to the penitentiary; and if we could go back, I would be glad to amend the bill so that none shall whip another's wife. But there need be no law to forbid the wife from whipping her husband, for that is never done unless he deserves it.
Mr. MILLER. It seems to me that reasoning in the report is sufficient--and that is, that the law as it now stands provides ample punishment. The law prescribes a fine of a thousand dollars and imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year. Now if the punishment was more severe than it is, the law could not be enforced. Again, the wife commonly must be the informer; and if she knew that the law would take her husband away so long she would never inform on him. Better to have the law reasonable, and leave a discretion as to the punishment to the court and jury. But the law is abused. Sometimes, for this offense, a justice will fine one dollar and costs. It might be a wipe provision of law, that the offender should not be fined less than $25, and to make the least grade of imprisonment one year. But, after all, perhaps the best way to protect the wives would be to make a good temperance law; for it will be seen that, even in Marion county, very few whip their wives unless they are drunk.
Mr. BUSKIRK. This debate is assuming something of our school boy days, when we had the question: Which is the greater calamity, a smoking chimney or a scolding wife? I think it would evidently be a greater misfortune to the wife to be whipped, than to have her husband sent to the penitentiary. But this bill would send the villain to the penitentiary for his declaration of intention to whip. Seriously: the present legal penalties are severe enough, the remedy is not to be found in severer enactmennts.
Mr. BARRETT. I do not know but it is a fair bill, but I do not want the House to understand that there are so many cases of wife-whipping in my county.
Mr. KIMBALL. I wish to set myself right before the House so far as Bartholomew county is concerned. [He produced and read the letter referred to, dated at Elizabethtown, addressed to Mr. K., expressing a liking for his bill (H. R. 132), and praying for its passage, and stating that they have six wife-beaters living in that town; that one of them has been prosecuted before a justice of the peace, and he got off so easily that his wife would not live with him after; another man, etc.]
Mr. BARRETT. Elizabethtown is so near the county line that I am inclined to think that a part of that business must have been done in Jennings county.
Mr. WALKER, The gentleman from Marion says the operation of this bill will discourage applications for divorce. But I would ask that gentleman, soberly: are you willing to place it in the power of the wife, by her own testimony, to put her husband into the penitentiary, and thereby obtain a legal cause for divorce? She has but to swear that her husband has whipped her, and put him into the penitentiary. That, to my mind, is a serious thing--too much power to trust in her hands.
page: 218[View Page 218]The bill was indefinitely postponed--yeas 47, nays 30.
