Upon pain of death!

OK, I don’t know if reading early US Colonial Law is actually entertaining or just making me feel better about the ridiculously overwrought style that’s been creeping into my A-paper (“ridiculously overwrought?” who, me)? But, uh, I actually found the following excerpts hilarious:

#1: Sodomy, Adultery and Rape bad. Fornication just kinda bad.
“No man shall commit the horrible, and detestable sins of Sodomie upon pain of death; & he or she that can be lawfully convict of Adultery shall be punished with death. No man shall ravish or force any woman, maid or Indian, or other, upon pain of death, and know ye that he or shee, that shall commit fornication, and evident proofe made thereof, for their first fault shall be whipt, for their second they shall be whipt, and for their third shall be whipt three times a day a weeke for one month, and aske publique forgivenesse” (Dale's Laws of 1611).

#2: Don’t like your teenager? Kill ‘em.
“If a man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient years & understanding (viz) sixteen years of age, which will not obey the voice of his Father, or the voice of his Mother, and that when they have chastened him will not harken unto them: then shal his Father & Mother being his natural parets, lay hold on him, & …testifie unto them that their Son is stubborn & rebellious & will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shal be put to death. Deut. 21. 20.21." (Laws and Liberties of Mass of 1648).

#3: Shuffleboard is evil.
“Upon complaint of great disorder by the use of the game called Shuffle-board, in houses of common entertainment, wherby much pretious time is spent unfruitfully and much wast of wine and beer occasioned, it is therefore ordered and enacted by the Authoritie of this Court;
That no person shall henceforth use the said game of Shuffle-board in any such house, nor in any other house used as common for such purpose, upon payn for every Keeper of such house to forfeit for every such offence twenty shillings…And any Magistrate may hear and determin any offence against this Law" (Laws and Liberties of Mass of 1648).