Читать книгу Odd Laws - Jenny Paschall - Страница 8

A Greek man cannot promise to marry a girl in order to seduce her. If this happens, the man must compensate the girl for the loss of her virginity.

The well-dressed Roman bride would not want to be seen with anything on her head – except cake! The custom of breaking the wedding cake over the bride’s head was an essential part of the ceremony as, by law, only children born of a bride who took part in this would be eligible in later life to assume high office.

In Seattle, Washington, a female may ride on a bus or train while sitting on a man’s lap if she first places a pillow between herself and the offending lap.

In Kentucky, it is illegal for a man to marry his wife’s grandmother. Any chance of this law being broken in South Dakota is greatly reduced, because there women over fifty cannot go for a walk and initiate a conversation with a married man over twenty.

In Indiana and Ohio it is a felony for a skating teacher to attempt to seduce a female student.

On 21 November, 1988, François Arsonval walked into a Paris police station and gave himself up. He was wanted for theft and bigamy, and finally confessed to marrying no less than 185 women in twelve years. The cases have still not been heard; police are having difficulty tracing all the women. This case would probably have amused Lord Russell of Killowen, a respected Lord Chief Justice of England. When he was asked what was the maximum punishment for bigamy his reply was, ‘Two mothers-in-law’!

Montana legislators have made it a felony for a wife to open her husband’s mail.

Law-makers in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, have declared it illegal for any female to be given a cigarette by a man. In Corvallis, Oregon, young ladies cannot drink any coffee after six p.m. If a woman is trying to give up cigarettes and coffee, she would do well to avoid visiting Pocatello, Idaho, where it is illegal to look gloomy in public!

But, here’s a law of which feminists would approve. In Cold Spring, Pennsylvania, liquor can only be sold to a married man if his wife has given her written permission. Kentucky women can have even more fun. They are actually encouraged by law to spike their husband’s alcoholic drinks with castor oil to curtail their drinking. Welcome to the Whiskey-a-go-go!

Ohio statutes permit a woman to burn her husband’s old clothing.

In Whitesville, Delaware, they are trying to nip domestic unrest in the bud. In fact, a woman can be arrested for disturbing the peace … by merely proposing marriage to a man! In Dyersburg, Tennessee, it is illegal for a girl even to phone a man for a date.

A matchmaker in Guangzhou Province, China, is on trial for fraud. It seems he convinced a barber to offer his unwilling wife for a scam in which they would sell the woman to a farmer, collect the fee, then immediately retrieve her. The arrangement backfired on nearly all counts. The barber was cheated out of the promised reward and now faces life in prison for selling his wife. The matchmaker also faces life imprisonment. Ironically, the fraudulent matchmaker had been an excellent judge of character. The wife preferred the farmer and refused to return to the barber.

In Baluchistan, Pakistan, a man can legally exchange his sister for a wife. For years a Pennsylvania husband could beat his wife, but not until after ten p.m., and in Alabama it was legal until 1871 for a man to choke his wife – with no time restrictions!

A woman in India can legally marry a goat. Some women may be forgiven for thinking that this is not restricted to India.

In Wichita, Kansas, a husband is allowed to mistreat his mother-in-law.

Men in Portland, Maine, cannot tickle a woman under the chin with a feather duster – no mention is made of other parts of the anatomy.

In Finland no one is allowed to marry until they can read.

… AND SEX

Alaskan police, acting on a tip, raided the hotel room of an Oregon man in which they found cocaine and $10,000 in cash. When asked why he had such a large amount of cash, he said it was given to him by a woman, whose name he had forgotten, as a reward for great sex.

A condom manufacturer decided to call his new range ‘Stealth Condoms’. The Northrop Corporation, builder of the B-2 ‘Stealth Bomber’, filed suit, claiming that people might confuse the two products. They were presumably protecting customers seeking the ultimate big bang!

Dr Alan Maryon Davies was accused of sexual harassment after telling a lady colleague, ‘I’m a bottom man myself’. He explained that there were no sexual undertones to his comment, however: they were on a train and had just passed through a town called Pratt’s Bottom, which had prompted him to make this confession.

Poor Gloria Sykes was hit by a cable car, and sued the San Francisco cable car company. Her claim was a little unusual, however. She was not particularly concerned by the cuts and bruises she suffered – she filed suit claiming that the accident had left her with serious psychological and neurological damage, which caused her to become a nymphomaniac. As a result, she said, she had engaged in sexual relations with over one hundred men. The court awarded her $50,000 damages.

Let’s hope she doesn’t make a trip to Rhode Island, where it was proposed that there should be a two-dollar tax levied on every act of sexual intercourse.

In England it is against the law to kiss in a cinema or to embrace in the street, while in London you cannot make love in trains, buses, parked cars, churchyards, churches or parks.

In Riverside, California, kissing is illegal – unless both parties first wipe their lips with rose water. In Halethorpe, Maryland, you don’t need rose water but a stopwatch to remain on the right side of the law – it is illegal to kiss for more than one second. And just in case you wonder how seriously these laws were treated, in the eighteenth century a sea captain in Boston was sentenced to spend two hours in the stocks for kissing his wife in public on a Sunday after returning from three years at sea.

Still more kissing – in Indiana, anyone who sports a moustache and who ‘habitually kisses human beings’ is breaking the law.