I found a death record for a man who died at Craftsbury, VT.  This record states his cause of death was murder, "harried to death by his wife".  Does this mean she physically harmed him, or just nagged him to death? I believe I have read the handwriting correctly and the word is harried. Thanks....

On 2/25/2011 7:32 AM, MK wrote: > I found a death record for a man who died at Craftsbury, VT. This record states > his cause of death was murder, "harried to death by his wife". Does this mean > she physically harmed him, or just nagged him to death? > > I believe I have read the handwriting correctly and the word is harried. > > Thanks.... Hi: One of the definitions of "harried" is: "To disturb or distress by, or as if by, repeated attacks." Today, the idea of repeated attacks behind the verb "harry" has been mostly limited to things that do not cause physical injury. However, the original meaning *was* physical. Since a cause of death of "murder" was never something to make light of, you can discard the idea that mere nagging was what was meant. I would interpret this as what we would call "abuse" today; repeated physical attacks, perhaps none individually enough to be serious but cumulatively devastating. Darrell