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assault and violence generally are almost as privileged in the case of an ordinary woman as of a wife against a husband. (4) Murder is similarly reduced to manslaughter, no matter who the woman may be, provided the victim is a man. (5) Waylaying, injuring business, or procuring dismissal, is similarly a pastime to be indulged in by any vindictive woman with absolute impunity. (6) Perjury is similarly a perquisite of the female litigant—whether perjury of the defensive or offensive type. (7) Turning wife's evidence after seduction of husband is, of course, open to all women without punishment. (8) Conspiracy to procure the husband's seduction, as has already been stated, goes unpunished if committed on the wife's side.
The class of offences more peculiarly effected by women in general, apart from wives, are due either to revenge or a desire to extort money. Violence, culminating in murder, has been sufficiently dealt with in considering the wife's privilege. Economic motive is displayed in crimes of Fraud, Libel and Slander, Waylaying, Seduction and Perjury, to levy blackmail—though sometimes libel and slander, waylaying, and perjury are due to motives of revenge.
Sometimes the law expressly discriminates between men and women; for instance, in the case of seduction: sometimes the administrators, for instance, in the case of fraud and perjury.
(a) Fraud.
Generally speaking, fraud by a woman against a man, by which he is deprived of all or a portion of his property, is not punishable—if the woman has been in intimate relations with him; it is her payment. If she be his wife fraud on her part is unnecessary, since the law expropriates him at her least request. Other women have an impunity to commit fraud.
In case the man has not been in intimate relations, then the woman's offence is, if punished at all, visited
