[765] MÖLLENDORFF, _Das chin. Familienrecht_, 32. In China a man is legally incapable of adultery. If the husband slay either the man or the woman taken _in flagrante delicto_, he must do so on the instant; "though it is also allowable for the husband to kill the adulterer outside the house, if it be in chase. But if the husband first ties up the adulterer, and then kills him, he will be guilty of a transportable offence.... If the husband kills the wife afterwards, he will be liable to three years' transportation and 100 blows."--ALABASTER, _Chinese Criminal Law_, 187, 188. If the paramour kills the husband, the wife is strangled, whether she knew of the crime or not, provided the husband has not consented to the adultery. Grace is shown the woman only "when the murder was sudden and unpremeditated;" but then only in case that she "fly to the rescue, and give the alarm, and do her best to bring the murderer to justice by denouncing him to the authorities."--ALABASTER, _op. cit._, 194. The price of the guilty wife sold as a concubine falls to the state: MÖLLENDORFF, 32. [766] The agreement, however, must be in good faith. Should the wife plan the divorce so as to form a punishable relation with another man, it is void, and the husband may retain the woman or sell her to another as in the case of unfaithfulness: KOHLER, "Aus dem chin. Civilrecht," _ZVR._, VI, 376. [767] MÖLLENDORFF, _op. cit._, 32; HELLWALD, _op. cit._, 380, 381; ALABASTER, _op. cit._, 182 ff.; GROSSE, _Die Formen der Familie_, 225 ff.; KATSCHER, _Bilder aus dem chin. Leben_, 90 ff., _passim_. [768] If he puts away his wife without just cause, he is to receive eighty blows with the bamboo and take her back: WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 232; KOHLER, _loc. cit._, 375; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 523; LETOURNEAU, _op. cit._, 300, 301; DOOLITTLE, _Social Life of the Chinese_, I, 106, 107. According to TSCHENG-KI-TONG, _China und die Chinesen_, 55, barrenness is the only serious ground of divorce in China, and even of this little use is made, particularly by the aristocracy; but this view is not sustained by other evidence, divorce being frequent among the lower classes: HELLWALD, _op. cit._, 380, 381. [769] KOHLER, _loc. cit._ On the other hand, the interpretation of these rules may often be "too elastic" in favor of the man. In one of the old Chinese books, according to WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 524, 525, "when a woman has any quality that is not good, it is but just and reasonable to turn her out of doors.... Among the ancients a wife was turned away if she allowed the house to be full of smoke, or if she frightened the dog with her disagreeable noise": citing NAVARETTE, _An Account of the Empire of China_ (London, 1704), 73.