Castigation
Encyclopedia
Castigation chastisement (via the French châtiment), or chiding is the infliction of severe (moral or corporal) punishment
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

. One who administers a castigation is a castigator or chastiser.

In earlier times, castigation specifically meant restoring one to a religiously pure state, called chastity
Chastity
Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....

. In ancient Rome, it was also a term for the magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

 called a censor
Censor (ancient Rome)
The censor was an officer in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances....

 (in the original sense, rather than the later politicized evolution), who castigated in the name of the pagan state religion but with the authority of the 'pious' state.

In Christian times, this terminology was adopted but roughly restricted to the physical sphere: chastity became a matter of approved sexual conduct, castigation usually meaning physical punishment
Physical punishment
Physical punishment is any form of penalty in a judicial, educational or domestic setting that takes a physical form, by the infliction on the offender of pain, injury, discomfort or humiliation...

, either as a form of penance
Penance
Penance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Anglican Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in non-sacramental confession among Lutherans and other Protestants...

, as a voluntary pious exercise (see mortification of the flesh
Mortification of the flesh
Mortification of the flesh literally means "putting the flesh to death". The term is primarily used in religious and spiritual contexts. The institutional and traditional terminology of this practice in Catholicism is corporal mortification....

) or as educational or other coercion, while the use for other (e.g. verbal) punishments (and criticism etc.) is now often perceived as metaphorical.

Self-castigation is applied by the repentant culprit to himself, for moral and/or religious reasons, notably as penance
Penance
Penance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Anglican Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in non-sacramental confession among Lutherans and other Protestants...

.

See also

  • Capital punishment
    Capital punishment
    Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

  • Corporal punishment
    Corporal punishment
    Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...

  • Chastisement
    Chastisement
    -Minors:English common law allowed parents and others who have “lawful control or charge” of a child to use “moderate and reasonable” chastisement or correction. A ruling in 1860 by Chief Justice Cockburn stated: “By the law of England, a parent .....

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK