It is a singular
circumstance, that the Peruvian law made no distinction between
fornication and adultery, both being equally punished with death.
Yet the law could hardly have been enforced, since prostitutes
were assigned, or at least allowed, a residence in the suburbs of
the cities. See Garcilasso, Com Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap.
34.]
[Footnote 9: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 23.
"I los traidores entre ellos llamava aucaes, i esta palabra es la
mas abiltada de todas quantas pueden decir aun Indio del Piru,
que quiere decir traidor a su Senor." (Cong. i Pob. del Piru,
Ms.) "En las rebeliones y alzamientos se hicieron los castigos
tan asperos, que algunas veces asolaron las provincias de todos
los varones de edad sin quedar ninguno." Ondegardo, Rel. Prim.,
Ms.]
The simplicity and severity of the Peruvian code may be thought
to infer a state of society but little advanced; which had few of
those complex interests and relations that grow up in a civilized
community, and which had not proceeded far enough in the science
of legislation to economize human suffering by proportioning
penalties to crimes. But the Peruvian institutions must be
regarded from a different point of view from that in which we
study those of other nations. The laws emanated from the
sovereign, and that sovereign held a divine commission, and was
possessed of a divine nature. To violate the law was not only to
insult the majesty of the throne, but it was sacrilege.
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