Petit treason


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Related to Petit treason: high treason
formerly, in England, the crime of killing a person to whom the offender owed duty or subjection, as one's husband, master, mistress, etc. The crime is now not distinguished from murder.
See under Petit.

See also: Petit, Treason

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by G. & C. Merriam Co.
References in periodicals archive ?
Initially, in the U.S., the institution of marriage was rooted in social inequality Historian Linda Kerber has noted that, with the exception of eliminating petit treason (treating the murder of a husband by his wife as regicide), "neither the government of the Articles of Confederation nor the federal government of the Constitution directly challenged the legal system of coverture."
History reveals the long view of marriage
(86) The statute divided the allegiance which every English subject owed his sovereign into two categories, petit treason and high treason.
Mitigating the dangers of capital convictions based on eyewitness testimony through treason's two-witness rule
[T]herefore for a wife to kill her lord or husband, a servant his lord or master, and an ecclesiastic his lord or ordinary; these being breaches of the lower allegiance, of private and domestic faith, are denominated petit treasons. But when disloyalty so rears its crest, as to attack even majesty itself, it is called by way of eminent distinction high treason ....
Treason in the age of terrorism: an explanation and evaluation of treason's return in democratic states
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