Mother-in-Law Is Fair Game to Brazil Judge

SAO PAULO, Brazil — A man who kicked and punched his mother-in-law acted to fulfill his conjugal duty, a Brazilian court ruled.

Arlindo Barbosa da Silva, a car mechanic, came home drunk one day in September and began arguing with his wife. When his mother-in-law, Jacira Rosa Alexandre, tried to intervene, Silva dealt her “a nice thrashing,” a Sao Paulo newspaper reported.

Accused of assault, Silva was found not guilty by Judge Antonio Carlos Goncalves, who concluded: “The accused acted in the strict fulfillment of his duty, which is to keep outsiders from perturbing conjugal harmony.”