What motivated the king (in the story "The Lady or the Tiger") to put people through a trial by ordeal?
Answers
The king was very powerful. Most of his ideas were obsolete and authoritarian. For justice he had peculiar ideas. He believed in luck or chance to dispense justice. He had an arena in which were two doors. The accused person’s justice was done in this arena. The accused person was put in the arena and he had to open one door. Behind one door crouched a fierce hungry tiger; and behind the other waited a beautiful damsel. If the accused opened the door behind which was tiger, he would be considered guilty; and if the accused opened the door behind which a beautiful maiden waited, he would be considered innocent. And the despotic king did not allow any interference with this method of giving justice.
The king had the motive to send a message to all the subjects of his kingdom that if anybody commit a crime he will also be put in the arena and will be eaten up by ferocious animal like tiger.
In the story one young man was in love of the princes which is forbidden in that country as the man is not from the family of a king.
So the young man was put in the arena to face a tiger.