Females were less capable of crime
Kleptomania, spousal murder, prostitution and rape, were glorified by the term “womanhood” rather than judged by the law.
There was a visible decline of female convictions between 1687 to 1912, essentially rendering crime as a masculine problem. The evangelical ideology was predominant in the 19th century and acted as a reinforcement of the ideal ‘Victorian Women’ or better known as the ‘angel of the house’. Besides, the Victorian “cult of domesticity” conceived artificial notions where these “angels” ideally were submissive, innocent, pure and gentle, a monument of selflessness having no other ambition than pleasing others.
Consequently, female offenders were largely defined as “mad and not bad”, due to their unfathomable betrayal of women’s “true” nature and social commitments. Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (UCL Press, London, 1994) highlighted this flawed idea as contribution to stark differences and responses to male criminals. Male criminals were often defined as criminals with rational and explicable motives.
Due to the juxtaposing of news reporting and fictional account in the Victorian era, crime stories were craved. Kleptomania was introduced in the 19th century when incline in retail crimes by middle-class women contrasted with their Victorian “home-centred image”. James F. Duncan (Popular error on the Subject of Insanity, Dublin, 1853) claimed Kleptomania as the insanely irresistible propensity to steal and is unprompted by wants.
The 1851 Esther Wyatt case linked pregnancy and kleptomania, arguing Esther`s feeble-mindedness and uncontrollable actions to the act. The asylum option silenced women.
Spousal murder vs Infanticide
Arthur Conan Doyle’s work: Sherlock Holmes was a perfect example of portraying women incapable of committing a violent crime unless undergoing certain mental problems. Women were often victims or mere bystanders, which reflected the Victorian view that only insane women were capable of committing crimes such as infanticide. The legal and judicial bodies showed leniency towards cases of “murdering mothers” because newspaper reports of such cases illustrated accusers as frail and vulnerable.
Another example is “Black Widows of Liverpool” , where there was refusal in law in sympathising the killed husbands. Unlike infanticide, these women were depicted frequently as menacing or cartoonishly evil.
Prostitution
During the Victorian era, a “prostitute” refers to women that cohabited with men outside marriage, having illegitimate children or having sex for pleasure rather than money. A staggering figure of 80,000 prostitutes were addressed. Women who chose prostitution were sensationalised and demonised as being innately sinful and possessing unnatural ‘sensuality’ as she deviated from the virginal ideal retaining her chastity even as mother and wife. Whereas, it was deemed normal behaviour for men to have sexual urges that had to be gratified.
The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864 was enacted after the prevalence of venereal disease among prostitutes and the British Military. This “legally” forced examination not only violated the basic human rights of victims but highlighted the gender biases within the law in choosing who to punish for this behaviour.
Rape
In most trials the accused escapes convictions not because jury thought no assault was committed, rather that she had either acted foolishly or invited the act. The biography of Mary Blandy (Newgate Calendar, 1863), “The Victim of Seduction Who Was Induced By Her Betrayer To Poison Her Father” concealed the violence of rape with depicting it as a mode of male sexual subjugation that beckoned admiration.
The Victorian view saw women as naturally born for marriage and marriage as the best outcome of life. According to the law, a woman was under the total and complete supervision of her husband after marriage. (Joan Perkin, Victorian Women Book, 1994). This stereotype was directly translated into legality at the time when marital rape were legal up until the ruling in R v R (1991).
From moralising attitudes to medicalised interpretations and fictional accounts, criminal women were deemed as distinct and subordinate creatures requiring disparate treatments. The juxtaposition of how women murdering babies and husbands were handled (both by the judicial system and the media) proved tenuous work for establishing women’s identity in the 19th century.
Although this sentiment did not begin in the Victorian era, it built a strong foundation in it with ramifications extending well into today. Would the bitter aftertaste wear off soon becomes a question one ponders well into the night…
