Crime born of shame and fear.

The crimes committed by women in most societies account for only about 10 per cent. One would think that women are not inclined to commit crimes, but they dominate in some crimes. Women committed half the murders in nineteenth-century Lithuania. Violent deaths of infants constituted about half of the total cases of violent deaths. Infanticide was the most common type of murder in Lithuania in the nineteenth century. This study is based on the analysis of court cases of 85 women accused of infanticide. The article analyses the motivation of the accused women, it seeks to give the answer to the question whether these women were cruel. The fact that most of the accused women (88.2 per cent) belonged to the same social layer of unmarried hired farm labourers suggests that infanticide was not an ordinary, accidental crime. It had deep social causes in that society. The women were scared of the reaction of their parents and the entire rural community. Shame and fear of being turned out and becoming an outcast in the community constituted perhaps the main cause of that crime. Poverty was another important cause for committing a crime. Hired farm labourers were afraid of losing jobs. It was especially difficult for a single mother with a child to find employment and to earn a living for herself and her child; quite often she had to go begging. The accused women were familiar with the fate of single mothers. Such a girl had no future in a rural community. Nonetheless, one can think that getting rid of a baby was a primitive form of birth control in the nineteenth century. Therefore these women should not be regarded as cruel. Simply the way that they chose was more acceptable to that social environment in which they lived. Crimes and criminal behaviour in Lithuania in the nineteenth century are not a new theme and this problem has already been considered by historians. The policing system, the development of punishment, the attitude of the authorities and the public to crimes and criminals in the nineteenth century were discussed by Vladas Sirutavičius.1 In her monograph2 Dalia Marcinkevičienė drew at1 V. Sirutavičius, Nusikaltimas ir visuomenė XIX amžiaus Lietuvoje (Vilnius, 1999). 2 D. Marcinkevičienė, Vedusiųjų visuomenė: santuoka ir skyrybos Lietuvoje XIX amžiuje – XX amžiaus pradžioje (Vilnius, 1999). LITHUANIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES 6 2001 ISSN 1392-2343 pp. 89–105 9 0 RIMA PRASPALIAUSKIENĖ tention to the violent behaviour of women towards their spouses and the situation of illegitimate children in traditional Lithuanian society. However, the violent behaviour of women in Lithuania of the nineteenth century is still a new phenomenon, which practically has not been considered by Lithuanian historians so far. The subject of study of the present article is criminal behaviour of women and violent deaths of infants in Lithuania in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. The study is based on the analysis of criminal actions brought for infanticide.3 In many societies only about 10 per cent of crimes used to be committed by women. It would be easy to think that women were not inclined to commit crimes, but they were dominant in some types of crimes. Women committed practically half the number of murders and most often newly born babies fell a victim to them. Violent deaths of babies accounted for about half the cases of violent deaths. Infanticide was usually the most common type of murder in Lithuania in the nineteenth century. Statistics for 1884– 1900 records 696 cases of infanticide in the Kaunas Gubernia, that is, on average 40.9 babies perished in that Gubernia every year4 . Data for the Vilnius Gubernia are very fragmentary, 106 such cases were recorded in 1896–1900, i.e., on average 21.2 babies perished annually. There is no reliable criminal statistics about this issue covering the whole nineteenth century. However, one can think that the figures recorded, as well as the cases investigated in courts, are only the tip of the iceberg, and the actual scope of these crimes can only be guessed. Why did women try to get rid of their illegitimate babies? Does that mean that they were cruel? Seeking to give an answer to these questions, we have analysed 85 court cases of the women who were accused of infanticide. The existing criminal cases that were brought against women who committed infanticide allow us to draw the conclusion that the violent death of an illegitimate baby surprised nobody in the Lithuanian village in the nineteenth century. Punishments According to the law, murder was subject to severe punishment. Punishment for infanticide was imposed on the 3 The study was based on the cases of the Supreme Court of Lithuania (Lithuanian Historical State Archive (henceforth LVIA) f. 443, the Department of Criminal Cases of Vilnius Joint Civil and Criminal Court (LVIA), f. 447) and the Vilnius District Court (LVIA, f. 448) 4 Pamiatnaia knizhka Kovenskoi gubernii, 1884-1900. 9 1 CRIME BORN OF SHAME AND FEAR basis of criminal laws of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire. That Code established the same punishment for premeditated infanticide as for any other type of murder; Article 19995 provided for the following punishment for this crime – depriving the individual of all property rights, sending the woman to penal servitude and imposing corporal punishment. However, mitigating circumstances were also provided for in case of infanticide, where ordinary murder was differentiated from the murder of a newly born baby. If the crime was committed against a newly born baby because of a feeling of shame or fear, and the woman had not committed a similar crime before, if she was single and gave birth for the first time, such a woman was subject to the deprivation of all property rights, deportation to Siberia and corporal punishment (Article 2000).6 Similar punishments were imposed for leaving the baby without any care, provided that it resulted in its death – corporal punishment, deportation or corrective labour from 3 to 6 years. Women were subject to imprisonment from three months to one year for hiding a stillborn baby due to shame and fear (Article 2009).7 By the way, according to the Lithuanian Statute of 1588, the death sentence was imposed for the murder of an illegitimate baby or killing a foetus.8 The church punishment of spiritual repentance for living together with a man without marriage was imposed on a woman accused of killing her baby. Spiritual repentance was applied to all women irrespective of the type of punishment that was imposed on them. In 85 cases mentioned above 84 women and one man (a priest) were accused. Different punishments were administered depending on the circumstances of the case – ranging from spiritual repentance in a monastery or an asylum to penal servitude in Siberia. Seven per cent of women were acquitted for lack of evidence, 16 per cent of women had to serve a term of imprisonment, 27 per cent of women were deported to Siberia. Public corporal punishments from 10 to 200 lashes were applied to 30 per cent of the accused. These women were given the lashes in the market places of cities and small towns; spiritual repentance was administered to 20 per cent of the women. 5 Svod Zakonov Rossiskoi imperii, Ugolovnye zakony, t. 15, 1837, r. X., gl. I, p. 501. 6 Ibid., p. 501-502. 7 Ibid., p. 504-505. 8 Cтaтyт ВКЛ 1588 года, p. 12, apт. 60 (Минск, 1989), c. 439 9 2 RIMA PRASPALIAUSKIENĖ The Accused Women Infanticide in Lithuania was common in rural areas. Practically all the crimes that have been investigated were committed in the countryside. Victims of these crimes without any exception were illegitimate children. Their mothers were Catholics who belonged to the poorest strata of the society – hired farm labourers. They were young, single (88.2 per cent) hired farm labourers – peasants, individual farm-hands, as well as those that belonged to the gentry, whom their landlords characterized as good workers. At the time of committing their crime they were twenty years old and were employed by their landlords. Only some of the girls lived in their parents’ homes. Married women accounted for 11.8 per cent among the women accused of committing the crime. As a rule they were older and it was not their first birth. They were widows, the wives of army recruits, or women who actually did not live together with their husbands. For example, the peasant Sofija Šalčienė was married for three years but her husband did not live with her. He stayed to live with his parents in Vilnius. The spouses had no children. Neither had they any property. Sofija served in the country and she was made pregnant by her landlord’s son.9 For many women this was the first crime in their life. Only one accused woman, Marijona Čiotirkutė, aged 45, got rid of a baby for the second time.10 Sixteen and a half per cent of the accused women had illegitimate children before, but most of them were dead. These women knew what it meant to be a single mother in the society of that time. They could expect help neither from their parents nor their brothers because they themselves were poor and worked as hired labourers. Besides, a large part of young girls had no parents. The peasant Anelė Matuzaitė had a nine-year old illegitimate daughter already. The woman had no permanent place of residence, and had difficulties in finding a job.11 Petronėlė Rustelytė managed to find a job because her uncle, a reservist, brought up her illegitimate son.12 9 Byla valstietei Sofijai Šalčienei, 1884, LVIA, f. 448, ap. 1, b. 44, f. 7. 10 Byla Marijonai Čiotirkutei, 1802, LVIA, f. 443, ap. 1, b. 174, f. 1 11 Byla valstietei Anelei Matuzaitei, 1870, LVIA, f. 447, ap. 1, b. 7655, f. 15. 12 Byla valstietei Petronėlei Rustelytei, 1846, LVIA, f. 447, ap. 19, b. 1524, f. 40. 9 3 CRIME BORN OF SHAME AND FEAR Most of these women were born into legal marriages, with only 6 per cent of them being illegitimate daughters of their mothers. These illegitimate mothers themselves had experienced what it meant to be an illegitimate child in their society. Scholastika Drabavičiūtė, aged 18, who was accused of killing her baby, was an illegitimate daughter of the noblewoman Teklė Rudzinskaitė; her father was also a nobleman. Her mother’s sister brought up the girl. Scholastika’s mother, Teklė Rudzinskaitė, died in abject poverty and was buried in a nameless grave without the priest’s blessing.13 The illegitimate peasant Justina Sakenaitė gave birth for a second time. Her first daughter died less than a week after she was born.14 The fact that most of the accused women belonged to the same social strata of single women allows us to suppose that infanticide was not a simple chance crime. It had deep social causes in that society. In the Shadow of the Accused Who were partners in the crime? Did they know about the crime? Perhaps their position was one of the causes stimulating women to commit crimes. According to the church canons, a man, like a woman, was regarded as having committed a crime if he lived with a woman without marrying her. If such a man confessed to having had extramarital relations with the accused woman, that is, if he admitted being the baby’s father, he was also subject to punishment. The punishment for a man was a spiritual repentance of several weeks or a month. No laws provided for any corporal punishment. A stereotype of liaison between the lord/landowner and a maid was perpetuated in society. The court cases studied deny in part the basis for such a stereotype. Only as little as 6 per cent of women had extramarital relations with their lords, another 6 per cent were made pregnant by their lord’s son or brother. Partners of one fifth (20 per cent) of the women were staying in those environs or they were soldiers who were home on leave. Women made their acquaintance at a dance or in a tavern. The men often lived on the same lord’s estate. In 4 per cent of cases fathers of the babies were travelling craftsmen, in 3 per cent of cases the women themselves did not know who made them pregnant. In 15 13 Byla Scholastikai, nesantuokinei bajoraitės Teklės Rudzinskaitės dukrai, 1850, LVIA, f. 447, ap. 19, b. 1000, ff. 7-8. 14 Byla Justinai Sakenaitei, 1858, LVIA, f. 447, ap. 19, b. 5714, f. 6. 9 4 RIMA PRASPALIAUSKIENĖ per cent of the cases studied the women’s partners were not mentioned at all. Nevertheless, the hired peasants with whom the women worked constituted the largest part of their sexual partners