Portuguese court cites Bible in its justification of beating
Judges in Portugal referenced the Bible and a 19th century law in a ruling that allowed an ex-husband to escape jail time for the vicious beating of his former wife.
“These references are merely intended to emphasize that society has always strongly condemned adultery by a woman and therefore sees the violence by a betrayed, vexed and humiliated man with some understanding,” the judges wrote.
The sentence has stunned women’s rights activists, legal experts and even religious authorities who saw it as an attempt to justify domestic violence.
The court heard that about three years ago, a married Portuguese woman began seeing another man. The affair was brief — and after two months, the woman wanted to end it.
The woman’s former lover turned to her husband, telling him his wife had been unfaithful. The couple divorced. But the two men, both enraged, worked together to plan an attack on the woman.
In June 2015, the former paramour kidnapped the woman and held her down while the ex-husband beat her viciously with a nailspiked club, leaving bruises and lashes all over her body.
The ex-husband was later given a 15-month suspended sentence and a fine of about US$2,000, according to The Associated Press. A prosecutor thought he deserved a harsher sentence, and asked an appeals court in Porto, Portugal’s second largest city, for prison time of three years and six months. But the appeals judges decided against it.
The judges felt it was somewhat understandable that a husband would act out against a wife who had betrayed him.
Judges Neto de Moura and Maria Luísa Abrantes wrote, “Now, adultery by a woman is a very serious attack on a man’s honour and dignity. Societies exist where the adulterous woman is stoned to death. In the Bible, we can read that the adulterous woman should be punished with death.”
The judges cited a criminal law from 1886 that called for merely a symbolic penalty against a husband who, finding his wife committing adultery, killed her.