Criminal Psychology; a manual for judges, practitioners, and students Part 26

It would be a mistake to deal too sternly in court with the dishonesty of women, for we ourselves and social conditions are responsible for much of it. We dislike to use the right names of things and choose rather to suggest, to remain in embarra.s.sed silence, or to blush. Hence, it is too much to ask that this round-aboutness should be set aside in the courtroom, where circ.u.mstances make straight talking even more difficult. According to Lombroso,[1] women lie because of their weaknesses, and because of menstruation and pregnancy, for which they have in conversation to subst.i.tute other illnesses; because of the feeling of shame, because of the s.e.xual selection which compels them to conceal age, defects, diseases; because finally of their desire to be interesting, their suggestibility, and their small powers of judgment. All these things tend to make them lie, and then as mothers they have to deceive their children about many things. Indeed, they are themselves no more than children, Lombroso concludes. But it is a mistake to suppose that these conditions lead to lying, for women generally acquire silence, some other form of action, or the negative propagation of error. But this is essentially dishonesty. To a.s.sert that deception, lying, have become physiological properties of women is, therefore, wrong. According to Lotze, women hate a.n.a.lysis and hence can not distinguish between the true and the false, but then women hate a.n.a.lysis

only when it is applied to themselves. A woman does not want to be a.n.a.lyzed herself simply because a.n.a.lysis would reveal a great deal of dishonesty; she is therefore a stranger to thorough-going honest activity. But for this men are to blame. n.o.body, as Flaubert says, tells women the truth. And when once they hear it they fight it as something extraordinary. They are not even honest with themselves. But this is not only true in general; it is true also in particular cases which the court room sees. We ourselves make honesty difficult to women before the court. Of course, I do not mean that to avoid this we are to be rude and shameless in our conversation with women, but it is certain that we compel them to be dishonest by our round-about handling of every ticklish subject. Any half-experienced criminal justice knows that much more progress can be made by simple and absolutely open discussion. A highly educated woman with whom I had a frank talk about such a matter, said at the end of this very painful sitting, "Thank G.o.d, that you spoke frankly and without prudery-I was very much afraid that by foolish questions you might compel me to prudish answers and hence, to complete dishonesty."

[1] Loco cit.

We have led women so far by our indirection that according to Stendthal, to be honest, is to them identical with appearing naked in public. Balzac asks, "Have you ever observed a lie in the att.i.tude and manner of woman? Deceit is as easy to them as falling snow in heaven." But this is true only if he means dishonesty. It is not true that it is easy for women really to lie. I do not know whether this fact can be proven, but I am sure the feminine malease in lying can be observed. The play of features, the eyes, the breast, the att.i.tude, betrays almost always even the experienced female offender. Now, nothing can reveal the play of her essential dishonesty. If a man once confesses, he confesses with less constraint than a woman, and he is less likely, even if he is very bad, to take advantage of false favorable appearances, while woman accepts them with the semblance of innocence. If a man has not altogether given a complete version, his failure is easy to recognize by his hesitation, but the opinions of woman always have a definite goal, even though she should tell us only a tenth of what she might know and say.

Even her simplest affirmation or denial is not honest. Her "no" is not definite; e. g., her "no" to a man's demands. Still further, when a man affirms or denies and there is some limitation to his a.s.sertion. He either announces it expressly or the more trained ear

recognizes its presence in the failure to conclude, in a hesitation of the tone. But the woman says "yes" and "no," even when only a small portion of one or the other a.s.serts a truth behind which she can hide herself, and this is a matter to keep in mind in the courtroom.

Also the art of deception or concealment depends on dishonesty rather than on pure deceit, because it consists much more in the use of whatever is at hand, and in suppression of material, than on direct lies. So, when the proverb says that a woman was ill only three times during the course of the year, but each time for four months, it will be unjust to say that she intentionally denies a year- long illness. She does not, but as a matter of fact, she is ill at least thirteen times a year, and besides, her weak physique causes her to feel frequently unwell. So she does not lie about her illness. But then she does not immediately announce her recovery and permits people to nurse and protect her even when she has no need of it. Perhaps she does so because, in the course of the centuries, she found it necessary to magnify her little troubles in order to protect herself against brutal men, and had, therefore, to forge the weapon of dishonesty. So Schopenhauer agrees: "Nature has given women only one means of protection and defence-hypocrisy; this is congenital with them, and the use of it is as natural as the animal's use of its claws. Women feel they have a certain degree of justification for their hypocrisy."

With this hypocrisy we have, as lawyers, to wage a constant battle. Quite apart from the various ills and diseases which women a.s.sume before the judge, everything else is pretended; innocence, love of children, spouses, and parents; pain at loss and despair at reproaches; a breaking heart at separation; and piety,-in short, whatever may be useful. This subjects the examining justice to the dangers and difficulties of being either too harsh, or being fooled. He can save himself much trouble by remembering that in this simulation there is much dishonesty and few lies. The simulation is rarely thorough-going, it is an intensification of something actually there.

And now think of the tears which are wept before every man, and not least, before the criminal judge. Popular proverbs tend to undervalue, often to distrust tearful women. Mantegazza[1] points out that every man over thirty can recall scenes in which it was difficult to determine how much of a woman's tears meant real

pain, and how much was voluntarily shed. In the notion that tears represent a mixture of poetry and truth, we shall find the correct solution. It would be interesting to question female virtuosos in tears (when women see that they can really teach they are quite often honest) about the matter. The questioner would inevitably learn that it is impossible to weep at will and without reason. Only a child can do that. Tears require a definite reason and a certain amount of time which may be reduced by great practice to a minimum, but even that minimum requires some duration. Stories in novels and comic papers in which women weep bitterly about a denied new coat, are fairy tales; in point of fact the lady begins by feeling hurt because her husband refused to buy her the thing, then she thinks that he has recently refused to buy her a dress, and to take her to the theatre; that at the same time he looks unfriendly and walks away to the window; that indeed, she is really a pitiful, misunderstood, immeasurably unhappy woman, and after this crescendo, which often occurs presto prestissimo, the stream of tears breaks through. Some tiny reason, a little time, a little auto- suggestion, and a little imagination,-these can keep every woman weeping eternally, and these tears can always leave us cold. Beware, however, of the silent tears of real pain, especially of hurt innocence. These must not be mistaken for the first. If they are, much harm may be done, for these tears, if they do not represent penitence for guilt, are real evidences of innocence. I once believed that the surest mark of such tears was the deceiving attempt to beat down and suppress them; an attempt which is made with elementary vigor. But even this attempt to fight them off is frequently not quite real.

[1] Fisiologia del dolore. Firenze 1880.

As with tears, so with fainting. The greater number of fainting fits are either altogether false, or something between fainting and wakefulness. Women certainly, whether as prisoners or witnesses, are often very uncomfortable in court, and if the discomfort is followed immediately by illness, dizziness, and great fear, fainting is natural. If only a little exaggeration, auto-suggestion, relaxation, and the attempt to dodge the unpleasant circ.u.mstance are added, then the fainting fit is ready to order, and the effect is generally in favor of the fainter. Although it is wrong to a.s.sume beforehand that fainting is a comedy, it is necessary to beware of deception.

An interesting question, which, thank heaven, does not concern the criminal justice, is whether women can keep their word. When a criminalist permits a woman to promise not to tell anybody else

of her testimony, or some similar navet, he may settle his account with his conscience. The criminalist must not accept promises at all, and he is only getting his reward when women fool him. The fact is, that woman does not know the definite line between right and wrong. Or better, she draws the line in a different way; sometimes more sharply, but in the main more broadly than man, and in many cases she does not at all understand that certain distinctions are not permitted. This occurs chiefly where the boundaries are really unstable, or where it is not easy to understand the personality of the sufferer. Hence, it is always difficult to make woman understand that state, community, or other public weal, must in and for themselves be sacred against all harm. The most honest and pious woman is not only without conscience with regard to dodging her taxes, she also finds great pleasure in having done so successfully. It does not matter what it is she smuggles, she is glad to smuggle successfully, but smuggling is not, as might be supposed, a sport for women, though women need more nervous excitement and sport than men. Their att.i.tude shows that they are really unable to see that they are running into danger because they are violating the law. When you tell them that the state is justified in forbidding smuggling, they always answer that they have smuggled such a very little, that n.o.body would miss the duties. Then the interest in smugglers and smuggling-stories is exceedingly great. We once had a girl who was born on the boundary between Italy and Austria. Her father was a notorious smuggler, the chief of a band that brought coffee and silk across the border. He grew rich in the trade, but he lost everything in an especially great venture, and was finally shot by the customs-officers at the boundary. If you could see with what interest, spirit, and keenness the girl described her father's dubious courses you would recognize that she had not the slightest idea that there was anything wrong in what he was doing.

Women, moreover, do not understand the least regulation. I frequently have had cases in which even intelligent women could not see why it was wrong to make a "small" change in a public register; why it was wrong to give, in a foreign city, a false name at the hotel; or why the police might forbid the shaking of dust-cloths over the heads of pedestrians, even from her "own" house; why the dog must be kept chained; and what good such "vexations" could do, anyway.

Again, tiny bits of private property are not safe from women. Note how impossible it is to make women understand that private

property is despoiled when flowers or fruit are plucked from a private garden. The point is so small, and as a rule, the property owner makes no objections, but it must be granted that he has the right to do so. Then their tendency to steal, in the country, bits of ground and boundaries is well known. Most of the boundary cases we have, involved the activity of some woman.

Even in their own homes women do not conceive property too rigidly. They appropriate pen, paper, pencils, clothes, etc., without having any idea of replacing what they have taken away. This may be confirmed by anybody whose desk is not habitually sacrosanct, and he will agree that it is not slovenliness, but defective sense of property that causes women to do this, for even the most consummate housekeepers do so. This defective property-sense is most clearly shown in the notorious fact that women cheat at cards. According to Lombroso, an educated, much experienced woman told him in confidence that it is difficult for her s.e.x not to cheat at cards. Croupiers in gambling halls know things much worse. They say that they must watch women much more than men because they are not only more frequent cheaters, but more expert. Even at croquet and lawn-tennis girls are unspeakably smart about cheating if they can thereby put their masculine opponents impudently at a disadvantage.

We find many women among swindlers, gamblers, and counterfeiters; and moreover, we have the evidence of experienced housewives, that the cleverest and most useful servants are frequently thievish. What is instructive in all these facts is the indefiniteness of the boundary between honesty and dishonesty, even in the most petty cases. The defect in the sense of property with regard to little things explains how many a woman became a criminal- the road she wandered on grew, step by step, more extended. There being no definite boundary, it was inevitable that women should go very far, and when the educated woman does nothing more than to steal a pencil from her husband and to cheat at whist, her sole fortune is that she does not get opportunities or needs for more serious mistakes. The uneducated, poverty-stricken woman has, however, both opportunity and need, and crime becomes very easy to her. Our life is rich in experiment and our will too weak not to fail under the exigencies of existence, if, at the outset, a slightest deviation from the straight and narrow road is not avoided. If the justice is in doubt whether a woman has committed a great crime against property, his study will concern, not the deed, but

the time when the woman was in different circ.u.mstances and had no other opportunity to do wrong than mere nibbling at and otherwise foolish abstractions from other people's property. If this inclination can be proved, then there is justification for at least suspecting her of the greater crime.

The relation of women to such devilment becomes more instructive when it has to be discovered through woman witnesses. As a rule, there is no justification for the a.s.sumption that people are inclined to excuse whatever they find themselves guilty of. On the contrary, we are inclined to punish others most harshly where we ourselves are most guilty. And there is still another side to the matter. When an honest, well-conducted woman commits petty crimes, she does not consider them as crimes, she is unaware of their immorality, and it would be illogical for her to see as a crime in others that which she does not recognize as a crime in herself. It is for this reason that she tends to excuse her neighbor's derelictions. Now, when we try to find out from feminine witnesses facts concerning the objects on which we properly lay stress, they do not answer and cause us to make mistakes. What woman thinks is mere "sweet- tooth" in her servant girl, is larceny in criminal law; what she calls "pin-money," we call deceit, or violation of trust; for the man whom the woman calls "the dragon," we find in many cases quite different terms. And this feminine att.i.tude is not Christian charity, but ignorance of the law, and with this ignorance we have to count when we examine witnesses. Of course, not only concerning some theft by a servant girl, but always when we are trying to understand some human weakness.

From honesty to loyalty is but a step. Often these traits lie side by side or overlap each other. Now, the criminal justice has, more frequently than appears, to deal with feminine loyalty. Problems of adultery are generally of subordinate significance only, but this loyalty or disloyalty often plays the most important rle in trials of all conceivable crimes, and the whole problem of evidence takes a different form according to the a.s.sumption that this loyalty does, or does not, exist. Whether it is the murder of a husband, doubtful suicide, physical mutilation, theft, perversion of trust, arson, the case takes a different form if feminine disloyalty can be proved. The rare reference to this important premise in the presentation of evidence is due to the fact that we are ignorant of its significance, that its determinative factors are hidden, and finally that its presentation is as a rule difficult.

Public opinion on feminine loyalty is not flattering. Diderot a.s.serts that there is no loyal woman who has not ceased being so, at least, in her imagination. Of course this does not mean much, for all of us have ideally committed many sins, but if Diderot is right, one may a.s.sume a feminine inclination to disloyalty. Most responsible for this is, of course, the purely s.e.xual character of woman, but we must not do her the injustice, and ourselves the harm, of supposing that this character is the sole regulative principle; the illimitable feminine need for change is also responsible to a great degree. I doubt whether it could be proved in any collection of cases worth naming that a woman grew disloyal although her s.e.xual needs were small; but that her s.e.x does so is certain, and thence we must seek other reasons for their disloyalty. The love of change is fundamental and may be observed in recorded criminal cases. "Even educated women," says Goltz,[1] "can not bear continuous and uniform good fortune, and feel an inconceivable impulse to devilment and foolishness in order to get some variety in life." Now it will be much easier for the judge to determine whether the woman in the case had at the critical time an especial inclination to this "devilment," than to discover whether her own husband was s.e.xually insufficient, or whatever similar secrets might be involved.

If woman, however, once has the impulse to seek variety, and the harmless and permissible changes she may provide herself are no longer sufficient or are lacking, the movement of her daily life takes a questionable direction. Then there is a certain tendency to deceit which is able to bring its particular consequences to bear. A woman has married, let us say, for love, or for money, for spite, to please her parents, etc., etc. Now come moments in her life in which she reflects concerning "her" reason for marriage, and the cause of these moments will almost always be her husband, i. e., he may have been ill-mannered, have demanded too much, have refused something, have neglected her, etc., and thus have wounded her so that her mood, when thinking of the reason of her marriage, is decidedly bad, and she begins to doubt whether her love was really so strong, whether the money was worth the trouble, whether she ought not to have opposed her parents, etc. And suppose she had waited, might she not have done better? Had she not deserved better? Every step in her musing takes her farther

[1] Bogumil Goltz: Zur Charakteristik u. Naturgeschichte der Frauen. Berlin 1863.

<349> from her husband. A man is nothing to a woman to whom he is not everything, and if he is nothing he deserves no especial consideration, and if he is undeserving, a little disloyalty is not so terrible, and finally, the little disloyalty gradually and naturally and smoothly leads to adultery, and adultery to a chain of crimes. That this process is not a thousand times more frequent, is merely due to the accident that the right man is not at hand during these so-called weak moments. Millions of women who boast of their virtue, and scorn others most n.o.bly, have to thank their boasted virtue only to this accident. If the right man had been present at the right time they would have had no more ground for pride. There is only a simple and safe method for discovering whether a woman is loyal to her husband-lead her to say whether her husband neglects her. Every woman who complains that her husband neglects her is an adulteress or in the way of becoming one, for she seeks the most thrifty, the really sound reason which would justify adultery. How close she has come to this sin is easily discoverable from the degree of intensity with which she accuses her husband.

Besides adultery, the disloyalty of widow and of bride, there is also another sense in which disloyalty may be important. The first is important only when we have to infer some earlier condition, and we are likely to commit injustice if we judge the conduct of the wife by the conduct of the widow. As a rule there are no means of comparison. In numerous cases the wife loves her husband and is loyal to him even beyond the grave, but these cases always involve older women whom l.u.s.t no longer affects. If the widow is at all young, pretty, and comparatively rich, she forgets her husband. If she has forgotten him, if after a very short time she has again found a lover and a husband, whether for "the sake of the poor children," or because "my first one, of blessed memory, desired it," or because "the second and the first look so much alike," or whatever other reason she might give, there is still no ground for supposing that she did not love her first husband, was disloyal to him, robbed and murdered him. She might have borne the happiest relations with him; but he is dead, and a dead man is no man. There are, again, cases in which the almost immediate marriage of a new-made widow implies all kinds of things, and often reveals in the person of the second husband the murderer of the first. When suspicions of such a situation occur, it is obviously necessary to go very slowly, but the first thing of importance is to keep tabs carefully on the

second husband. It is exceedingly self-contradictory in a man to marry a woman he knows to have murdered her first husband- but if he had cared only about being her lover there would not have been the necessity of murdering the first.

The opposite of this type is antic.i.p.atory disloyalty of a woman who marries a man in order to carry on undisturbed her love-affair with another. That there are evil consequences in most cases is easy to see. Such marriages occur very frequently among peasants. The woman, e. g., is in love with the son of a wealthy widower. The son owns nothing, or the father refuses his permission, so the woman makes a fool of the father by marrying him and carries on her amour with the son, doubly sinful. Instead of a son, the lover may be only a servant, and then the couple rob the husband thoroughly -especially if the second wife has no expectations of inheritance, there being children of a former marriage. Variations on this central theme occur as the person of the lover changes to neighbor, cousin, friend, etc., but the type is obvious, and it is necessary to consider its possibilities whenever suspicion arises.

The disloyalty of a bride-well, we will not bother with this poetical subject. Everybody knows how merciless a girl can be, how she leaves her lover for practical, or otherwise ign.o.ble reasons, and everybody knows the consequences of such things.[1]

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

[1] Sergi: Archivio di Psichologia. 1892. Vol. XIII.

differently we shall be compelled to speak of it as if it were a disease. If disease is not sufficient explanation, we shall have to say with the Italians, "l'amore une castigo di Dio."

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 nave 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

no such jealousy preceded or that she had forgiven her rival. It may be that she has come to an understanding with her husband and no longer cares about the rival, but this is only either mere semblance or temporary, for the first suspicion of danger turns loose the old jealousy with all its consequences. Here again her husband is safe and all her rage is directed upon her rival. The typical cases are those of the attacks by abandoned mistresses at the weddings of their lovers. They always tear the wreath and veil from the bride's head, but it never is said that they knock the groom's top-hat off.

Another characteristic of feminine love which often causes difficulties is the pa.s.sion 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 a.s.signed. 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

man, and again, it has been erroneously supposed that a certain woman who refused a most desirable heirloom left her by a man, must have known of some great crime committed by him. But we need no other motive for this action than her infinite love, and the reason of that infinity we find in the nature of that love. It is, in fact, woman's life, whereas it is an episode in the life of man. Of course, we are not here speaking of transitory inclinations, or flirtations, but of that great and profound love which all women of all cla.s.ses know, and this love is overmastering; it conquers everything, it forgives everything, it endures everything.

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 rou, 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 s.e.xuality 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 s.e.xual interests tend easily to dominate such relations. We suppose them to be rare just because their existence requires that s.e.xual 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 pa.s.sion 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

of course, they are never altogether believed in. The necessary thing in treating these cases is caution, for it will be impossible to prove these friendships unlikely, and hence unjust to deny them without further evidence. It will be necessary to discover whether the s.e.xual interest is or can be excluded. If not, the friendship is purely a nominal one.

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 where- ever 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 cla.s.ses, hate,

anger, and revenge are only different stages of the same emotion. Moreover, n.o.body finds greater joy in revenge than a woman. Indeed I might say that revenge and the pursuit of revenge are specifically feminine. The real, vigorous man is not easily turned thereto. In woman, it is connected with her greater sensibility which causes anger, rage, and revenge to go further than in men. Lombroso has done most to show this, and Mantegazza cites numberless examples of the superior ease with which woman falls into paroxysms of rage. Hence, when some crime with revenge as motive is before us, and we have no way of getting at the criminal, our first suspicion should be directed toward a woman or an effeminate man. Further, when we have to make an orderly series of inferences, we will start from this proposition into the past, present, and future, and shall not have much to wonder at if the successful vengeance far exceeds its actual or fanciful occasion, and if, perhaps, a very long time has elapsed before its accomplishment. Nulla irae super iram mulieris.

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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. 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 b.u.t.tons. 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 s.e.x. 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

a number of feminine characteristics with one of which the cruelty of the crime may be connected and explained, we have a clew to the criminal. The instances mentioned,-the motherly care of house and family, frugality, miserliness, hardness to servants, cruelty to aged parents,-seem rare and not altogether rational, yet they occur frequently and give the right clew to the criminal. There are still other similar combinations. Everybody knows feminine love for trials at court, for the daily paper's reports of them, and for public executions. While the last were still common in Austria, newspapers concluded regularly with the statement that the "tender" s.e.x was the great majority of the crowd that witnessed them. At public executions women of the lower cla.s.s; at great trials, women of the higher cla.s.ses, make up the auditors and spectators. Here the movement from eagerness, curiosity, through the desire for vigorous nervous stimulation, to hard-heartedness and undeniable cruelty, is clear enough.

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 pa.s.sional 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

have good principles, their place is taken by fear of discovery and punishment, and by the question whether the advantage to be gained is worth the effort, etc. The commission of the crime is itself evidence that the reasons for it were all-powerful. Now suppose that a woman gets the idea of killing somebody. Here for a time pro and contra will balance each other, and when the latter are outweighed she will think that she *must commit murder. If she does not think so she will not do so. Now, every murder, save that by poison, requires courage, the power to do, and physical strength. As woman does not possess these qualities, she spontaneously makes use of poison. Hence, there is nothing extraordinary or significant in this fact, it is due to the familiar traits of woman. For this reason, when there is any doubt as to the murderer in a case of poisoning, it is well to think first of a woman or of a weak, effeminate man.

The weakness of woman will help us in still another direction. It is easily conceivable that all forms of weakness will seek support and a.s.sistance, whether physical or moral. The latter is inclined in cases of need to make use, also, of such a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sign 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 circ.u.mstances are less dangerous, but they require consideration when they count on certain popular views, especially superst.i.tions and certain customs and a.s.sumptions. Suppose, for example, that a young wife wants to get rid of her

old husband whom she had married for the sake of his money. Now certain proverbs point to the fact that old men who marry young women die soon after marriage. This popular view may be entirely justified in the fact that the complete alteration in the mode of life, the experience of uncustomary things, the excitement, the extreme tension, then the effort in venere, finally, perhaps also the use of popularly well-known stimulants, etc., may easily cause weakening, sickening, and as conclusion the death of the old man. But the public does not draw this kind of inference, it simply a.s.sumes, without asking the reason, that when an old man marries a young woman, he dies. Therefore a young wife may easily think, "If I make use of poison n.o.body will wonder, n.o.body will see anything suspicious about the death. It is only an event which is universally supposed to happen. The old man died because he married me." Such ideas may easily seduce an uneducated woman and determine her conduct. Of course, they are not subject to observation, but they are not beyond control, if the popular views concerning certain matters are known as the views which determine standards. Therefore their introduction into the plot of the suspect may help us in drawing some useful inference.[1]

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 circ.u.mstances have behaved innumerable times in such a way that if they had been poor girls child-murder would immediately have been a.s.sumed. 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

[1] Cf H. Gross's Archiv. I, 306, III, 88, V, 207, V, 290.

[2] Wigand: Die Geburt des Mensehen. Berlin 1830. Klein ber Irrtum bei Kindesmord, Harles Jahrbuch, Vol. 3. Burdach Gerichts

interpret everything connected with the matter as psychologist and humanitarian. At the same time it must not be forgotten that one of the most dangerous results is due to this att.i.tude. Lawmakers have without further consideration kept in mind the mental condition of the mother and have made child-murder much less punishable than ordinary murder. It is inferred, therefore, that it is unnecessary to study the conditions which cause it. This is dangerous, because it implies the belief that the case is settled by giving a minimum sentence, where really an infinity of grades and differences may enter. The situation that the law-maker has studied is one among many, the majority of which we have yet to apprehend and to examine.

Section 76. (d) Emotional Disposition and Related Subjects.

Madame de Krdener writes in a letter to Bernardin de St. Pierre: "Je voulais tre sentie." These laconic words of this wise pietist give us an insight into the significance of emotional life of woman. Man wants to be understood, woman felt. With this emotion she spoils much that man might do because of his sense of justice. Indeed, a number of qualities which the woman uses to make herself noted are bound up with her emotional life, more or less. Compa.s.sion, self-sacrifice, religion, superst.i.tion,-all these depend on the highly developed, almost diseased formation of her emotional life. Feminine charity, feminine activity as a nurse, feminine pet.i.tions for the pardon of criminals, infinite other samples of women's kindly dispositions must convince us that these activities are an integral part of their emotional life, and that women perform them only, perhaps, in a kind of dark perception of their own helplessness. On the one side an unconscious egoism impels them to the defence of those who find themselves in a *similar condition; on the other side, it is a feminine characteristic to apply anything she is to judge to herself first, and then to make her choice. That she does this, rests on the eminent overweight of emotion. So Schopenhauer says: "Women are very sympathetic, but they are behind man in all matters of justice, probity, and scrupulous conscientiousness. Injustice is the fundamental feminine defect."[1] Schopenhauer should have added, "because they are too sympathetic, because emotion takes up so much place in their minds that they have not enough left for justice." According to Proudhon, "The conscience of woman

[1] Parerga and Paralipomena.