Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 March 29

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March 29

Legal removal from power in history

What was the first country or other historical formation that had legal means to remove the head of state or ruler from power? I was also thinking about why the much-developed and reverred Roman law failed to adopt a legal procedure of removal of the Roman emperor from power (via senatorial motion of no confidence or something like that), despite numerous precedents of assassinations and damnatio memoriae. Was it because of divine imperial cult, deeply rooted in Roman mindset? That said, it's understandable that a monarchy like Roman Empire couldn't have such a mechanism by definition, but still... Brandmeister^talk 08:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Athenian democracy could certainly remove the head of state legally, as could many other Greek city-state democracies (i.e. Argos) and non-democracies (i.e. Sparta). --Bowlhover (talk) 09:00, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Roman laws, under the Roman Republic, which predated the Empire, the heads of state were the Roman consuls, served annual terms, and could be removed from office as well. The Roman Emperor grew out of the institution of the Roman dictator, an extraconstitutional office which existed under the republic to manage the nation during times of crisis. The dictator had the power to suspend many traditional constitutional rights and practices under the republic, and unlike Consuls, could rule by decree, but they only served while the Senate recognized threats to the city itself (generally wars being fought on the Italian peninsula). The Emperor was basically a permanent dictator (though they chose to avoid that title because of the stigma associated with it). Consuls removed from office before their legal term expired include, just scanning the List of Roman consuls there are several years when multiple consuls served, some of these I've found died in office, but others (Marcus Valerius Laevinus was one I found) were removed from office. --Jayron32 16:02, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Jane Williams' marital status

In Thomas Jefferson Hogg and Jane Williams, they are described as common-law husband and wife, respectively. Yet her husband was alive. Did common-law marriage mean something else in those days, or are they mistakes?

Also, an East Indiaman captain was called a "military officer" in Williams' article. I've changed it to "sea captain", but was it correct before? Clarityfiend (talk) 10:17, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. I suppose it depends on the context; our article on common-law marriage in the UK suggests that it may informally simply "refer to unmarried, cohabiting heterosexual relationships" without any legal meaning. If I'm reading the article correctly, from a man-on-the-street perspective, they were common law simply by living together. The legal status of the common-law marriage would be dependent on whether she was legally separated from her first husband, or even fully divorced. Unfortunately, the references cited in the article all seem to be from dead-tree books. Matt Deres (talk) 13:18, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

See also "Common law marriage" and cohabitation - Commons Library Standard Note from the UK Parliament which suggests that the term only means that they were cohabiting. Alansplodge (talk) 15:24, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

With regard to the "military officer", this might well have been correct. The Honourable East India Company had both its own Armies and its own Navy, originally the Honourable East India Company's Marine, which became the Bombay Marine and in 1830 Her Majesty's Indian Navy. Moreover, several of their East Indiamen, though nominally civilian vessels, were effectively warships and some were transferred to the Royal Navy. Depending on when the marriage in question took place, therefore, the "sea captain" in question may well have been popularly considered as, or officially, a military officer. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.218.13.204 (talk) 21:36, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Although in previous centuries, "military" and "naval" were related but distinct terms; as in the Naval and Military Club. Alansplodge (talk) 15:00, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks all. I'm going to revert my "sea captain" and leave the "husband" and "wife" alone. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:10, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you sure something hasn't gotten confused somewhere along the line? Jane's article says she was the common-law wife of Edward Ellerker Williams, not Hogg (and that she was married to someone else before Edward, too). Adam Bishop (talk) 00:49, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Per the second paragraph of Hogg, "Jane became Hogg's common-law wife and they had two children together." She was both or neither, not at the same time of course. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:00, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

The fair housing act - "preference or requirement"?

I was reading aboutChicago Lawyers' Committee For Civil Rights Under Law v. Craigslist, Inc. a few years ago, and looked at the actual civil complaint.

Some of the ads were pretty clear violations of the Fair Housing Act, such as an ad stating "NO MINORITIES". However, many of the examples of supposedly discriminatory ads had me baffled. such as:

"The neighborhood is predominantly Caucasian, Polish and Hispanic"

"All in a vibrant southwest Hispanic neighborhood"

"The neighborhood is Orthodox Jewish, for the most part, with temples close by"

Stupid, also, because Orthodox Jews do not refer to their houses of worship as temples but as synagogues. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:12, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

"Near St Gertrudes' church"

"Near transport, shopping, church"

"Within walking distance to transportation, shopping, church"

"Walk to shopping, restaurants, coffee shops, Synagogue"

There are other similar alleged violations, but I'll leave it at that. What I find puzzling is that the way I read these ads, the property owner probably doesn't give a damn if their tenant is Caucasian, Hispanic, Jewish, or whatever, etc etc. They're simply pointing out things which would make their property attractive to these particular groups (in seeking the widest possible potential tenant base), but would be perfectly happy and willing to take on a tenant who doesn't fall into them. Would a court actually hold this to be a violation of the Fair Housing Act? Are there any precedents on the matter? 202.10.88.217 (talk) 12:33, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

You're assuming good faith on the part of the landlords; but what you describe are long-established ways of encouraging some groups while discouraging others from buying or renting the property in question - and discouraging realtors familiar with the coded language from doing business with the wrong sort of people. "Near church" might just be innocent, or it might be the traditional way of saying "No Jews". I don't know if the discriminatory language provisions have passed Supreme Court muster. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 15:02, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

A common one in London at present seems to be "family-oriented" as a way for estate agents to signal to each other (if not to their clients) that gay people are discouraged. Similarly, private schools whose prospectuses mention "traditional values" won't accept children from same-sex marriages (source: recent dinner party conversations!). It's quite astonishing how much bigotry there still is. It's more genteel than Indiana, but it's still pervasive. RomanSpa (talk) 17:54, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Precedents like about like that come each time there is a push for the eradication of this or that. The ads you've listed may be innocent communitarianism but judges are far too impatient for trying to invent new conceptual boundaries. Maybe this gets more or less filtered through the circuits. --Askedonty (talk) 19:23, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Plaintiff in error

I discovered that plaintiff in error is a {{wiktionary redirect}}, not an article or an ordinary redirect. Two questions arise from this:

1. Is the difference between the concept of <"plaintiff in error"> and <plaintiff, appeal, and all other relevant topics> so great that it couldn't be retargeted to one of them? Seems to me that a plaintiff in error could be covered in plaintiff, but perhaps there's a big difference that I'm overlooking.
2. I would expect the plural to be "plaintiffs in error", but Wiktionary says that it's a non-count noun; is that correct? Take the following sentence: "The judges grew weary of all the frivolous appeals on their docket, so they summoned all the frivolous plaintiffs in error and ordered them to jump in a lake". This sounds to me more sensible than "...summoned all the frivolous plaintiff in error and ordered them..."

Nyttend (talk) 19:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the first point - Appellate procedure in the United States seems like a better target for the redirect. I'm not personally familiar with the term, but "plaintiffs in error" gives a very large number of hits in the law reports. Tevildo (talk) 20:26, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with both points. A plaintiff in error is really the title used for an appellant in certain states and procedures, if I am not mistaken. The appellant may have originally been the plaintiff or the defendant. I agree also that it should be capable of being used in the plural. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:19, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Origin of Palm Branches

Do the palm branches that were used for Western Palm Sunday in the United States in Catholic, Episcopal, and Protestant churches grown and harvested in the southern United States, or are they grown in Israel, or are they from elsewhere? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a single source for all of them. Different churches use different palms (some use plastic facsimiles as well, which makes them reusable) This page notes many different styles of palms in use, from many different places in the world. That one website caters to Catholic churches, which shows the wide variety of palms used even in that one denomination. --Jayron32 23:40, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I tried to view the web site, but my security software says that the web site's security certificate is not valid. As for plastic facsimiles, those cannot be burned for Ash Wednesday, although their reuse would be a different method of recycling that I have not heard of. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:22, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

A charity called The African Palms Association supplies palm crosses (but not fronds apparently) to churches in Europe and the US, made by impoverished farmers in Tanzania. Catholic Relief Services sell Fair Trade palm fronds in the US from Guatemala and Mexico. In medieval England, yew branches were used instead, which explains the number of thousand year-old yew trees in English churchyards. Alansplodge (talk) 12:56, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Citation needed on that being the explanation, Alansplodge. My understanding is that they generally predate the Christian structures, which as a matter of church policy were often built on existing pagan sites (which are presumed to have had them). Also, their being both very long-lived and evergreen meant they could symbolize eternal life, which might have been relevant to the pagans and certainly was to their Christian successors. {The poster formerly known as 87.81/230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 14:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

"For many centuries it was the custom for yew branches to be carried on Palm Sunday and at funerals." The Woodland Trust. The linked article also discusses the pagan issue, although (according to the Trust) there are only 10 British yew trees that "predate the 10th century" when Christianity was already well established. Alansplodge (talk) 15:08, 30 March 2015 (UTC)