Today we will talk about an obsolete word that has long gone out of the everyday life of an ordinary person. Time goes forward and many words become archaisms that do not take root in the new environment. The funniest thing is that the phenomenon denoted by this word continues to exist. It is already happening under another “pseudonym”, more adapted to modern society.
Have you ever heard such a word as “bribery”, and does it tell you something? If you have not heard, then this is not at all surprising, since it completely disappeared from the set of words of modern man. If you had to hear it, then you perfectly understand what is at stake.
What is bribery
In order to understand what this word means, one should turn to obsolete vocabulary. To do this, it is enough to look through the literature of the last century and plunge into the past beautiful times. In classics, this word is quite common. So, its outdated meaning is bribery. It is funny that such an unpleasant and unreadable word denotes the same ugly and unworthy process.
History
History is impossible without a root cause. Bribe taking is something that was inherent in people from the very beginning of time, but over the course of centuries, unfortunately, it was only gaining momentum. Of course, the law strictly punished those who took bribes, but even the punishment stopped few people. Most often, the punishment was too simple and insufficient to achieve the goal - once and for all to discourage a person from wanting to take bribes.
The state apparatus itself dictated such conditions that it was very difficult to solve many issues without outside help. Naturally, “thanks” nobody was going to provide such assistance. Moreover, we must not forget about the fact that society itself considered honest people who did not take money and conduct business "in good faith" to be simpletons, fools and fools. They were very often used, and few considered them smart.
This example clearly shows how public opinion affects a specific person. Most became the same as everyone, even if it was contrary to their life and moral principles. Alas, the opinion of society is perceived by us as more significant than our own point of view. And only a few could resist universal bribery, but every year there were fewer and fewer such people. Unfortunately, bribery is such a phenomenon, "getting dirty" with which one day then it is impossible to "wash off".
The laws
In Russia, criminal law acted. It was believed that bribery is an activity that deserves punishment from the state. Officially, bribery was not encouraged, but was disgraced, but in fact - it was impossible to do without it. Bribery was the execution by an official of a certain duty for extraneous remuneration. The punishment for this action was corporal, but if the bribe was, as they say now, "on an especially large scale," then the guilty person could be sentenced to life in Azov. Corporal punishment refers to numerous whips.
If we turn to other nations, then their hand was cut off for bribe-taking so that a person would learn a lesson for life. More cruel methods are also known that did not deprive a person of body parts, but who guilty were ruthlessly tortured. Herodotus wrote that the king of the Persians Cambyses, learning that he was dealing with bribed people, ordered to cover his judicial chair with the skin of the guilty.
Synonyms of the word
Now we understand what bribery is. The meaning of the word is very close and understandable to anyone who has ever encountered such a phenomenon, and this is almost every second person. The vocabulary of our ancestors was quite rich, but not too universal, although this did not spoil it at all. For example, the word "bribery", whose synonyms should be numerous in logic, has not so many of them. Of the obsolete words, only “extortion” is a synonym, but it also has a slightly different connotation.
In modern vocabulary there are a lot of synonyms for this word, but most of them are foul language, so we will not remember them. Most of all, the expression “take it on its paw” has taken root in society, but, again, it has existed for a long time.
Bribery and extortion
In the modern sense, these two words are considered synonyms, but in reality this is not so. In order to understand this, one should delve into the criminal law of Russia, which stated that bribery is the execution of a certain action by an authorized person for a fee, and extortion is a professional crime, that is, a distortion of certain information. Interestingly, extortion and bribery were punished equally.
Summing up, it should be noted that bribery is an unworthy act, and people have understood this since ancient times. The church has always condemned such actions, equating them to witchcraft and drunkenness. But it should be understood what mentality developed in the territory of a certain state. It is foolish to condemn the people of bribe takers if the state does not provide an opportunity for a fair solution to cases or, in a more modern version, does not allow fair competition to develop.