{"title":"Crime born of shame and fear.","authors":"R. Praspaliauskienė, A. Matulyte","doi":"10.30965/25386565-00601005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-00601005","url":null,"abstract":"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 Heruntergeladen von Brill.com02/13/2020 04:37:18AM via free access 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 ","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":"6 1","pages":"89-105"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69270019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A vessel of sins full of virtues: the ideal image of the female in the occasional writings of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.","authors":"J. Sarcevičienė","doi":"10.30965/25386565-00601002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/25386565-00601002","url":null,"abstract":"the ideal female image in occasional literature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the analysis of the wife's place in the family, her relations with her husband and children, her place in the religious community and her behaviour in the face of death, the author discusses the main social roles of the noblewoman as obedient wife, devoted mother, pious churchgoer and generous patron of the poor. Attention is also paid to training for these social roles and how they are described in the sources. The issues raised in the paper are investigated against the general background of European Christian culture. In 1615 Nicholas Breton wrote: A quiet w o m a n is like a still wind, which neither chills the body nor b lows dust in the face. Her patience is a virtue that wins the heart o f love , and her w i s d o m makes her wil l wel l worthy regard. She fears God and flieth sin, showeth kindness and loveth peace. Her tongue is tied to discretion, and her heart is the harbour o f goodness . She is comfort o f calamity and in prosperity a companion, a physician in sickness and a musician in help. Her ways are the walk toward heaven, and her guide is the grace o f the Almighty. She is her husband's down-bed, where his heart l ies at rest, and her children's glass in the notes o f her grace; her servants' honour in the keeping o f her house, and her neighbours' example in the notes o f a good nature. She scorns fortune and loves virtue, and out o f thrift gathereth charity. She is a turtle in her love, a lamb in her meekness , a saint in her heart, and an angel in her soul. In sum, she is a jewel unprizcable and her j o y unspeakable, a comfort in nature uncomparable, and a wife in the world unmatchablc. 1 1 The Cultural Identity of Seventeenth-Century Woman (London New York, 1994), p. 98. 24 JOLITA SARCEVIČIENĖ In these words one English writer of religious and pastoral works succinctly but precisely expressed the ideal female image, her so cial role and the main features of her character. Although Christianity offered the same moral code and hope of salvation to men and women alike, it was commonly considered that woman was morally weaker by nature. Consequently she was more liable to vices than a man, and therefore only certain virtues were required of her. A comparison of sets of virtues, considered peculiar to men and women, shows that dynamic virtues were pronounced fit for men, and passive ones for women. Courage, magnanimity and domination were treated as male features, while modesty, submissiveness and self-denial were female traits. Con temporaries clearly distinguished between male and female models of behaviour as depending on their respective differing natures. It went without saying that male and female virtues were different, and it would have been not only unjust but also godless to ignore them. 2 In the analysis of the ideal female image, recorded in the occa sional writings of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the late sixteenth and early s","PeriodicalId":39190,"journal":{"name":"Lithuanian historical studies / Lithuanian Institute of History","volume":"6 1","pages":"23-54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2001-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69269960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}