Pillory:
The pillory was a device used for punishment in the form of public shaming. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the mechanism usually consisted "of a wooden framework mounted on a post, with holes or rings for trapping the head and hands, in which an offender was confined so as to be subjected to public ridicule, abuse, assault, etc." The fact that Ruth stands next to her husband in the pillory at the end of this ballad suggests that both adulteress and cuckold were subjected to public shaming as a result of Ruth's transgression. Men whose wives were unfaithful were the most ridiculed personages in early English society.
An image of the pillory-stocks, surrounded by an angry mob. [21]