Sex, Murder, and the Unwritten Law: Courting Judicial Mayhem, Texas Style

From the 1880s until after World War I, Texas prosecutions for adultery, fornication, rape, seduction, and sodomy were many, but formal penal code seemed much too merciful to suit most southerners, who believed in direct and personal redress of such wrongs. "Unwritten law" seemed to justify the killing--or at least maiming--of almost anyone who by actual physical contact or inappropriate comment offended southern notions of female virtue, male honor, or sanctity of marriage. Illicit sex is ...