The flames of revenge—and its fuels

Press, 16 August 1978, Page 21

The flames of revenge—and its fuels

By

ANNE KARPF.

"'Sunday Times,” London

Mrs Jane Litterick is in good company. She is the wife of the British Member of Parliament, Mr Tom Litterick, and she was sentenced t<J two years probation for setting fire to her husband’s girlfriend’s house. Revenge has been a common practice for generations and in many cultures. It has preoccupied literature and law in Britain. from Hamlet to the Homicide Act 1957. It has furnished droppings for the gossip columns, and Famous Case series for television. Indeed. Mrs Litterick’s course of action is most traditional: arson is a very common form of revenge for sexual infidelity. In some parts of Africa, it is standard practice for a husband whose wife has -un off with another man to burn down the roof (made of banana leaves) of the other man’s house. It takes about a month to repair, but the man never prosecutes: he accepts it as retaliation. Professor Terence Gibbens. of the London Institute of Psychiatry, has even had West African patients in England who have done the same thing — but who were baffled by the different response

But what is it that distinguishes the avengers from the non-avengers, given that most of us at one time or other harbour vengeful thoughts, but never put them into action? According to Professor Gibbens, you have to be deeply insulted and not merely hurt — though the dividing line can be a hazy one —.and you have to feel utterly justified and be a rather hard and aggressive person. In Mrs Litterick’s case, it emerged in court that she was very closely involved in her husband's political life as well as suffering the usual strains of an M.P.’s wife, and idolised him. In addition, her children had turned against her, and the affair received heavy publicity. The vengeful person often feels that they are losing control, and revenge may be one way of reasserting it. Professor Gibbens also believes that “revenge is a very convenient way of solidifying your reaction, so that you don’t have to look at all sides of an issue, or deal with the complexity of a situation.” But perhaps most important. “it’s a relief to suffering: it’s really more

tolerable to convert your pain to anger, it’s much easier to deal with.” The letter of the law is less sympathetic to revenge. It calls it “provocation,” and in theory it has almost no influence on verdicts. It affords no defence in crimes against

property, nor in crimes agains the person save in one case: murder. A charge of murder can be reduced because of provocation to manslaughter. In sentencing, though, it can always be brought in, and indeed often plays an enormous role in mitiga-

tion: it might even reduce a custodial sentence to a fine. And, in practice, since juries are only human and may well feel “he got what he de* served,” it sometimes does affect the verdict. The working of the British Homicide Act which covers provocation has produced some ghoulish conundrums. The jury has to ask itself whether the provocation was enough to ma! ? a reasonable man act as he did.” One House of Lords ruling asserted that you could not. invest this hypothetically teasonable man' with the mental or physical peculiarities of the defendant. They rejected the appeal of an impotent man who murdered a prostitute who had jeered at him, since his impotence was deemed a physical oddity. Curiously, the French, though famed practitioners of “crimes passionel,” do not recognise it as such in their Penal Code. It is simply a mitigating factor, though one used extravagantly by defence lawyers since it can reduce a death sentence, and not just in classic jealous-hus-band cases. Lawyer Maitre Michel Koenig' at the French Embassy in London, recalls a

case where a man shot and killed another because he was outraged at the latter’s political views in a public meeting. He got off. Says Maitre Koenig: “We are Latins: naturally we tend to place greater stress on emotions than you do in Britain.” In Italy, too, passion is recognised as an extenuating factor, though the law sanctioning revenge killings was repealed some time ago. The ancient Greeks were more tolerant of vengeance, and carried out several varieties. One was the barbaious and unrestricted vendetta, when a single killing provoked an endless series of retaliations, Mafia-style. Another was the personal restricted vendetta, when you got your own back but there was no hereditary or collective punishment, so you didn’t visit the sins of the father on his children or neighbours. The third was the tribal “wergeld” which was compensation in the form of goods or valuables paid by relatives of the slayer to relatives of the slain, which expiated the homicide. This was common in pre-medieval Germany, Wales, Ireland. Scotland, and among the AngloSaxons.

Today, in other cultures, it may still be necessary to take on a rival to redeem your honour in society. In some Southern states of America, a father still considers himself duty-bound to kill a black rapist of his daughter even though he knows he faces jail for life. And Professor Gibbens remembers on a visit to Beirut 10 years ago coming across a 14-year-old boy in jail. He had been designated by his family as the official executioner

of his sister, who had had sex before marriage. He cut her throat and was serving a life sentence. He could not understand it: he expected to be praised. This reflects the conflict in most societies between the underlying idea of natural justice, and the superimpoesd “progressive” legal code. But even in our sophis-

ticated Western cultures, the idea of personal revenge remains attractive. Michael Winner’s film “Death Wish” chartered the vendetta, waged by one man, after his wife and daughter had been raped and assaulted, against New York muggers. When it was shown in Britain and America, audiences cheered him.