Seventeenth century ritual humiliation for
cuckolded or
henpecked husbands.
It was assumed that the
husband should be able to keep
control of his
wife, and therefore the
male victim, not the
female perpetrator, would be the focus of these events. The
man was seen to deserve
ridicule for letting his wife get the
upper hand.
As a rule, the
victim would be
verbally abused,
laughed at, and kept awake by the
playing of
loud music or the banging of
saucepans outside his house.
Sometimes, however, the abuse was
physical; men could be
beaten up,
ducked in the village pond or paraded through the village sitting backwards on a
mule.
The purpose of charivari/skimingtons was to ensure that the
orthodox social order was followed.