Death Penalty

Death penalty

For many centuries that date back to the medieval period and till today, a lot of people have been opposing death penalty which is considered as the legal infliction of death for violating criminal law. This opposing view has not changed a lot since the medieval period, since it has been believed that execution is murder, enforcing more execution would only proliferate more crimes and one’s life should not be in a man’s authority; it should be in God’s hand.

One of the capital punishments that date back to the medieval period is death penalty which had been imposed for such serious crimes as robbery, kidnapping, rape and treason. In the “Wife of Bath’s Tale”, it has been obvious that the queen had a strong faith and belief in the six commandment of the Holy Book “thou shall not kill”. This commandment that God did not only mean murder in it ,but also killing people’s feeling by hurting them. So when it came to sentencing a knight to death penalty for raping a maiden, This queen interfered motivated by her strong belief that taking away a person’s life should not be in man’s authority, and for that she asked the king to handle the case ,and she gave the knight a great chance to escape this death penalty by giving her the right answer to the question “what do woman want most ?”( Chaucer 157).If he succeeded to bring the answer after a year and a day, he would be set free and if not he would be dead . The king could have sentenced this knight to death for committing this serious crime, and the knight couldn’t have felt the mercy given to him by this queen. Although the knight failed many times to be told the right answer , he was able to find it by the help of an old woman who told him “A woman wants the self-same sovereignty over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her.”(160), this wise answer enabled him to escape his end .He was also given the chance to leave a happy life with this old woman who turned to be a beautiful lady. So if it has not been for this merciful queen and her kind act that we felt through the whole story, we could not have touched the cruelty of death penalty.

Today, those who oppose death penalty do not have a different view from this queen who lived in medieval period ,They have the same interpretation for the sixth commandment and the same belief that man’s life should not be in man’s authority; it should be only in God’s hand the creator. Today is also believed that crimes can not be stopped and another