"A jilted husband built an electric chair in his garage in an attempt to kill his wife after she shocked him by asking for a divorce."

The old jilt → jolt sequence.

Andrew Castle, 61, was so furious at the crumbling of his 18 year marriage he planned to rig a metal armchair to the mains - and invited wife Margaret in ''for a chat.''

Castle asked unwitting Margaret to sit in the chair so he could knock her her out with a cosh and throw on the switch.

But Margaret, 61, got up out of the seat and the couple then got caught up in a violent struggle. Castle landed several blows on his wife's head with the rubber cosh but she escaped through a side door.

A cosh, eh? It's a blackjack. The word I want to talk about is "jilted." Look at the etymology:

"to deceive after holding out hopes," 1670s, from jilt (n.) "loose, unchaste woman; harlot," perhaps ultimately from M.E. gille "lass, wench," a familiar or contemptuous term for a woman or girl (mid-15c.), originally a shortened form of woman's name Gillian, popular form of Juliana.

But if a man does it to a woman, we don't masculinize it and say he jacked her. Although this Castle guy did react with a blackjack....

used in many senses since 16c., earliest is possibly "tar-coated leather jug for beer" (1590s), from black + jack in any of its many slang senses. The weapon so called from 1889; the card game by 1910.

Castle is an interesting name for a man who couldn't say his home was his castle.

"Teach him that his home is his castle, and his sovereignty rests beneath his hat."

He had to go out to the garage and rig up a chair with electricity and invite his wife to sit down and chat in an evil but ineffectual attempt to regain control over his domain. He couldn't avoid the jilt, but — by simply getting up — she avoided the jolt...

1590s, perhaps from M.E. jollen, chollen "to knock, to batter" (early 15c.), or an alteration of obsolete jot (v.) "to jostle" (1520s). Perhaps related to earlier jolt head "a big, stupid head" (1530s). Figurative sense of "to startle, surprise" is from 1872.

A big, stupid head. Thinking about a man named Castle who didn't rule his house or even his garage, you may wonder — in the etymological atmosphere of this post — whether "castle" and "castration" have the same root. The answer is... I'm not sure. "Castle" goes back to a word that means "fort," and "castration" goes back to a word that means "knife," but that word in both cases is the same: "castrum."

Blogger gets up out of her blogging chair and escapes through a side door.