Topic I. GENERAL DIFFERENCES.
(a) Woman. Criminal Psychology: a manual for judges, practitioners, and students | ||
Section 75. (c) Love, Hate and Friendship.
If Emerson is right and love is no more than the deification of persons, the criminalist does not need to bother about this very rare paroxysm of the human soul. We might translate, at most, a girl's description of her lover who is possibly accused of some crime, from deified into human, but that is all. However, we do not find that sort of love in the law courts. The love we do find has to be translated into a simpler and more common form than that of the poet. The sense of self-sacrifice, with which Wagner endows his heroines, is not altogether foreign in our work; we find it among the lowest proletarian women, who immolate themselves for their husbands, follow them through the most tremendous distress, nurse and sustain them with hungry heroism. This is more remarkable than poetical self-sacrifice, but it is also different and is to be differently explained. The conditions which cause love can be understood in terms of the effects and forces of the daily life. And where we can not see it
Love is of greater importance in the criminal court than the statutes allow, and we frequently make great mistakes because we do not count it in. We have first of all to do our duty properly, to distinguish the biological difference between the human criminal and the normal human being, rather than to subsume every criminal case under its proper statute. When a woman commits a crime because of jealousy, when in spite of herself she throws herself away on a good-for-nothing; when she fights her rival with unconquerable hatred; when she bears unbelievable maltreatment; when she has done hundreds of other things—who counts her love? She is guilty of crime; she is granted to have had a motive; and she is punished. Has enough been done when the jury acquits a jealous murderess, or a thrower of vitriol? Such cases are spectacular, but no attention is paid to the love of the woman in the millions of little cases where love, and love only, was the impulse, and the statute sentencing her to so and so much punishment was the outcome.
Now, study the maniacally-clever force of jealousy and then ask who is guilty of the crime. Augustine says, that whoever is not jealous is not in love, and if love and jealousy are correlate, one may be inferred from the other. What is at work is jealousy, what is to to be shown is love. That is, the evil in the world is due to jealousy, but this cause would be more difficult to prove than its correlate, love. And we know how difficult it is to conceal love,—so difficult that it has become a popular proverb that when a woman has a paramour, everybody knows it but her husband. Now, if a crime has been committed through jealousy it would be simply naïve to ask whether the woman was jealous. Jealousy is rare to discover and unreliable, while her love-affair is known to everybody. Once this becomes an established fact, we can determine also the degree of her jealousy.
Woman gives the expression of her jealousy characteristic direction. Man attempts to possess his wife solely and without trouble, and hence is naturally jealous. The deceived woman turns all her hatred on her rival and she excuses the husband if only she believes that she still possesses, or has regained his love. It will therefore be a mistake to suppose that because a woman has again begun to love her husband, perhaps after a long-enduring jealousy, that
Another characteristic of feminine love which often causes difficulties is the passion with which the wife often gives herself to her husband. Two such different authors as Kuno Fischer and George Sand agree to this almost verbatim. The first says: "What nature demands of woman is complete surrender to man," and the second: "Love is a voluntary slavery for which woman craves by nature." Here we find the explanation of all those phenomena in which the will of the wife seems dead beside that of the husband. If a woman once depends on a man she follows him everywhere, and even if he commits the most disgusting crimes she helps him and is his loyalest comrade. We simply catalogue the situation as complicity, but we have no statutes for the fact that the woman naturally could do nothing else. We do not find it easy to discover the accomplices of a man guilty of a crime, but if there is a woman who really loves him we may be sure that she is one of them.
For the same reason women often bear interminably long maltreatment at the hands of their husbands or lovers. We think of extraordinary motives, but the whole thing is explained if the motive was really feminine love. It will be more difficult for us to believe in this love when the man is physically and mentally not an object of love. But the motives of causes of love of woman for man, though much discussed, have never been satisfactorily determined. Some authorities make strength and courage the motives, but there are innumerable objections, for historic lovers have been weak and cowardly, intellectual rather than foolish, though Schopenhauer says, that intelligence and genius are distasteful to women. No fixed reasons can be assigned. We have to accept the fact that a most disgusting man is often loved by a most lovely woman. We have to believe that love of man turns women from their romantic ideals. There has been the mistaken notion that only a common crime compels a woman to remain loyally with a thoroughly worthless
There is still another inexplicable thing. Eager as man is to find his woman virgin, woman cares little about the similar thing in man. Only the very young, pure, inexperienced girl feels an instinctive revulsion from the real roué, but other women, according to Rochebrune, love a man in proportion to the number of other women who love or have loved him. This is difficult to understand, but it is a fact that a man has an easy task with women if he has a reputation of being a great hand with them. Perhaps this ease is only an expression of the conceit and envy of women, who can not bear the idea that a man is interested in so many others and not in themselves. As Balzac says, "women prefer most to win a man who already belongs to another." The inconceivable ease with which certain types of men seduce women, and at whose heads women throw themselves in spite of the fact that these men have no praiseworthy qualities whatever, can only be so explained. Perhaps it is true, as is sometimes said, that here is a case of sexuality expressing itself in an inexplicable manner.
Of course there are friendships between men and women, although such friendships are very rare. There is no doubt that sexual interests tend easily to dominate such relations. We suppose them to be rare just because their existence requires that sexual motives be spontaneously excluded. There are three types of such friendships. 1. When the age of the friends is such as to make the suspicion of passion impossible. 2. When from earliest childhood, for one reason or another, a purely fraternal relationship has developed. 3. When both are of such nature that the famous divine spark can not set them afire. Whether there is an electrical influence between couples, as some scientists say, or not, we frequently see two people irrationally select each other, as if compelled by some evil force. Now this selection may result in nothing more than a friendship. Such friendships are frequently claimed in trials, and
Friendship between women is popularly little valued. Comedies, comic papers, and criticisms make fun of it, and we have heard all too often that the news of the first gray hair, or the disloyalty of a husband, has its starting-point in a woman friend, and that women decorate themselves and improve themselves in order to worry their friends. One author wanted to show that friendships between two women were only conspiracies against a third, and Diderot said that there is a secret union among women as among priests of one and the same religion—they hate each other, but they protect each other. The latter fact we see frequently enough in the examination of women witnesses. Envy, dislike, jealousy, and egoism play up vividly, and he is a successful judge who can discover how much of the evidence is born of these motives. But beyond a certain point, women co-operate. This point is easy to find, for it is placed wherever feminine qualities are to be generalized. So long as we stick, during an examination, to a concrete instance, and so long as the witness observes no combination of her conduct and opinions with that of the object of her testimony, she will allow herself to be guided partly by the truth, partly by her opinions of the woman in question. But just as soon as we expressly or tacitly suggest common feminine qualities, or start to speak of some matter in which the witness herself feels guilty, she turns about and defends where before she had been attacking. In these cases we must try to find out whether we have become, "general." If we have, we know why the witness is defending the accused.
We may say the same things of feminine hate that we have said of feminine love. Love and hate are only the positive and negative aspects of the same relation. When a woman hates you she has loved you, does love you, or will love you,—this is a reliable rule for the many cases in which feminine hatred gives the criminalist work. Feminine hatred is much intenser than masculine hatred. St. Gregory says that it is worse than the devil's, for the devil acts alone while woman gets the devil to help her, and Stolle believes that a woman seeking revenge is capable of anything. We have here to remember that among women of the lower classes, hate,
Feminine cruelty is directly connected with feminine anger and hatred. Lombroso has already indicated how fundamental woman's inclination to cruelty is. The cases are well known, together with the frequent and remarkable combination of real kindness of heart with real bestiality. Perhaps it would be proper to conceive this cruelty as a form of defence, or the expression of defence, for we often find cruelty and weakness paired elsewhere, as among children, idiots, etc. It is particularly noticeable among cretins in the Alps. The great danger of the cretin's anger is well known there. Once, one of these unfortunates was tortured to death by another because he thought that his victim had received from the charitable monks a larger piece of bread than he. Another was killed because he had received a gift of two trousers buttons. These instances, I should think, indicate the real connection between cruelty and weakness. Cruelty is a means of defence, and hence is characteristic of the weaker sex. Moreover, many a curious bit of feminine cruelty is due to feminine traits misunderstood, suppressed, but in themselves good. Just as we know that frugality and a tendency to save in housekeeping may often lead to dishonesty, so we perceive that these qualities cause cruelty to servants, and even the desire to put out of the way old and troublesome relatives who are eating the bread that belongs to husband and children.
These facts serve not only to explain the crime, but to reveal the criminal. If we succeed, other things being equal, in adducing
There would be nothing for us to do with this fact if we had not to deal with the final expression of cruelty, i. e., murder; especially the specifically feminine forms of murder,—child-murder and poisoning. These, of course, in particular the former, involve abnormal conditions which are subjects for the physician. At the same time it is the judge who examines and sentences, and he is required to understand these conditions and to consider every detail that may help him in drawing his conclusion.
That poisoning is mainly a feminine crime is a familiar fact of which modern medico-legal writers have spoken much; even the ancient authors, not medical, like Livy, Tacitus, etc., have mentioned it. It is necessary, therefore, carefully to study the feminine character in order to understand how and why women are given to this form of murder. To do so we need consider, however, only the ordinary factors of the daily life; the extraordinary conditions, etc., are generally superfluous.
Every crime that is committed is committed when the reasons for doing it outweigh the reasons for not doing it. This is true even of passional crimes, for a pro and contra must have presented themselves in spite of the lightninglike swiftness of the act. One appeared and then the other, the pro won and the deed was done. In other crimes this conflict lasts at least so long as to be definitely observable, and in the greater crimes it will, as a rule, take more time and more motive. The principles of good and of evil will really battle with each other, and when the individual is so depraved as no longer to
The weakness of woman will help us in still another direction. It is easily conceivable that all forms of weakness will seek support and assistance, whether physical or moral. The latter is inclined in cases of need to make use, also, of such assistance as may be rendered by personal inward reflection. Now this reflection may be on the one hand, dissuasion, on the other hand persuasion, self-persuasion; the first subduing self-reproach, the latter, fear of discovery. Hence, a woman will try to persuade not only herself, but others also that she was justified in her course and will assign as reason, bad treatment. Now there might have been some bad treatment, but it will have been altered and twisted so utterly as to lose its original form and to become imaginatively unbearable. Thus, a series of conclusions from the reactions of the suspect to her environment may be easily found, and these are the more convincing if they have occurred within a rather long period of time, in which they may be chronologically arranged, and from which a slow and definite intensification, usque ad ultimum, can be proved. Such an analysis is, of course, troublesome, but if done systematically, almost always rich in results.
The tricks of persuasion which are to suppress the fears of discovery are always helps of another sort. As a rule they are general, and point to the fact that the crime contemplated had occurred before without danger, that everything was intelligently provided for, etc. Now these circumstances are less dangerous, but they require consideration when they count on certain popular views, especially superstitions and certain customs and assumptions. Suppose, for example, that a young wife wants to get rid of her
With regard to child-murder the consideration of psychopathic conditions need not absolutely be undertaken. Whether they are present must, of course, be determined, and therefore it is first of all necessary to learn the character of the suspect's conduct. The opportunity for this is given in any text-book on legal medicine, forensic psychopathology, and criminal psychology. There are a good many older authors.[2] Most of the cases cited by authorities show that women in the best of circumstances have behaved innumerable times in such a way that if they had been poor girls child-murder would immediately have been assumed. Again, they have shown that the sweetest and most harmless creatures become real beasts at the time of accouchement, or shortly after it develop an unbelievable hatred toward child and husband. Many a child-murder may possibly be explained by the habit of some animals of consuming their young immediately after giving birth to them. Such cases bind us in every trial for child-murder to have the mental state of the mother thoroughly examined by a psychiatrist, and to
Topic I. GENERAL DIFFERENCES.
(a) Woman. Criminal Psychology: a manual for judges, practitioners, and students | ||