There was no law prohibiting wife-killing but women couldn't kill their husbands in Russia.
Dr Samuel Collins, an Englishman who acted as physician to Tsar Alexei from 1660 to 1669, wrote about a merchant who beat his wife until he was exhausted, using a whip about two inches thick. Afterwards he forced the woman to put on a smock that had been dipped in brandy, which he then set on fire............................ She perished in the flames, and the man went about his business.
Masses of women tried to revolt, but Russian secular law guarded the borders of patriarchy, introducing a special punishment for the wife who killed her husband. The Law Code of 1649 prescribed that she was to be BURIED ALIVE in a sacred killing site known as The Pit.
Thus women were reminded of the superiority of men.
Dr Samuel Collins, an Englishman who acted as physician to Tsar Alexei from 1660 to 1669, wrote about a merchant who beat his wife until he was exhausted, using a whip about two inches thick. Afterwards he forced the woman to put on a smock that had been dipped in brandy, which he then set on fire............................ She perished in the flames, and the man went about his business.
Masses of women tried to revolt, but Russian secular law guarded the borders of patriarchy, introducing a special punishment for the wife who killed her husband. The Law Code of 1649 prescribed that she was to be BURIED ALIVE in a sacred killing site known as The Pit.
Thus women were reminded of the superiority of men.
