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(k) Impunity for Perjured Denials of Guilt.
Women, it is notorious, every day perjure themselves in divorce suits, by denying that they committed adultery when their guilt is manifest. They are never prosecuted. The administrators of the law show by their practice—though not in articulate words—that they hold such perjury a venial fault, if not, indeed, a justifiable means of self-defence in the case of holy, inviolate woman.
This privilege, like the analogous one of bringing lying charges against a husband, extends to the wife's friends and hirelings. Let a husband untruly deny his illicit connection with a woman if his wife is the accuser. The Public Prosecutor intervenes, as a case decided in June, 1896, shows clearly enough, when the male went to penal servitude.
Yet, be it observed, it is only the man's denying with the object of protecting himself against his wife that is punished. If the man be not a husband, but a co-respondent: if he deny the truth with the laudable object of protecting a wife (who happens to be an adulteress—but that does not strip her of her privilege) then his perjury is pardonable and chivalrous. The co-respondent is safe under the shadow of the wife. In fact he must lie. And this brings us to the next head of privilege.
(l) Impunity for Treacherous Confession of Guilt.
Here we have a most striking rule—No woman is supposed to be a cowardly traitor if she turns "wife's evidence" against a man, and truly alleges that he had illicit relations with herself. She is assisting justice, promoting morality, showing true repentance by open confession, and aiding in the women's trade union object of keeping down man, the slave! Her treachery to her accomplice is condoned.
