[1] J. B. Friedreich: System der gerichtlich. Psychol. Regensburg 1852.
In crimes, this fact will not be easy to observe in the deed itself, or in the manner of its execution; it will be observable in the nature of the plan used. To say that the plan indicates productive creation would not be to call it original. Originality can not be indicated, without danger of misunderstanding, by means of even a single example; we have simply to cling to the paradigm of Heusinger, and to say, that when the plan of a criminal act appears more independent and more completely worked out, it may be a.s.sumed to be of masculine origin; if it seeks support, however, if it is an imitation of what has already happened, if it aims to find outside a.s.sistance during its execution, its originator was a woman. This truth goes so far that in the latter case the woman must be fixed upon as the intellectual source of the plan, even though the criminal actually was a man. The converse inference could hardly be held with justice. If a man has thought out a plan which a woman is to execute, its fundamental lines are wiped out and the woman permits the productive aspect of the matter to disappear, or to become so indefinite that any sure conclusion on the subject is impossible.
Our phenomenon is equally important in statements by witnesses. In many a case in which we suppose the whole or a portion of a witness"s testimony to be incorrect, intentionally invented, or involuntarily imagined, we may succeed in extracting a part of the testimony as independent construction, and thus determining what might be incorrect in it. If, when this happens, the witness is a man and his lies show themselves in productive form, and if the witness is a woman and her lies appear to be reproduced, it is possible, at least, that we are being told untruths. The procedure obviously does not in itself contain anything evidential, but it may at least excite suspicion and thus caution, and that, in many cases, is enough. I may say of my own work that I have often gained much advantage from this method. If there were any suspicion that the testimony of a witness, especially the conception of some committed crime, was untrue, I recalled Heusinger, and asked myself "If the thing is untrue, is it a sonnet or a tragedy?" If the answer was "tragedy" and the witness a man, or, if the answer was "sonnet" and the witness a woman, I concluded that everything was possibly invented, and grew quite cautious. If I could come to no conclusion, I was considerably helped by Heusinger"s other proposition, asking myself, "Flower-pictures or historical subjects?"
And here again I found something to go by, and the need to be suspicious. I repeat, no evidence is to be attained in this way, but we frequently win when we are warned beforehand.
(3) s.e.xual Peculiarities.
Section 65. (a) General Considerations.
Even if we know that hunger and love are not the only things that sustain impulse, we also know the profound influence that love and all that depends upon it exercise from time immemorial on the course of events. This being generally true, the question of the influence of s.e.x on woman is more important than that of its influence on man, for a large number of profound conditions are at work in the former which are absent in the latter. Hence, it is in no way sufficient to consider only the physiological traits of the somatic life of woman, i. e., menstruation, pregnancy, child-birth, the suckling period, and finally the climacterium. We must study also the possibly still more important psychical conditions which spring from the feminine nature and are developed by the demands of civilization and custom. We must ask what it means to character when an individual is required from the moment p.u.b.erty begins, to conceal something for a few days every month; what it means when this secrecy is maintained for a long time during pregnancy, at least toward children and the younger people. Nor can it be denied that the custom which demands more self-control in women must exercise a formative influence on their natures. Our views do not permit the woman to show without great indirection whom she hates or whom she likes; nor may she indicate clearly whom she loves, nor must she appear solicitous. Everything must happen indirectly, secretly, and approximately, and if this need is inherited for centuries, it must, as a characteristic, impart a definite expression to the s.e.x. This expression is of great importance to the criminalist; it is often enough to recall these circ.u.mstances in order to find explanation for a whole series of phenomena. What differences the modern point of view and modern tendencies will make remains to be seen. Let us now consider particular characteristics.
Section 66. (b) Menstruation.
We men, in our own life, have no a.n.a.logy, not even a remote one, to this essentially feminine process. In the mental life of woman it is of greater importance than we are accustomed to suppose. In
most cases in which it may be felt that the fact of menstruation influences a crime or a statement of facts, it will be necessary to make use of the court physician, who must report to the judge. The latter absolutely must understand the fact and influence of menstruation. Of course he must also have general knowledge of the whole matter, but he must require the court physician definitely to tell him when the event began and whether any diseased conditions were apparent. Then it is the business of the judge to interpret the physician"s report psychologically-and the judge knows neither more nor less psychology, according to his training, than the physician. Any text-book on physiology will give the important facts about menstruation. It is important for us to know that menses begin, in our climate, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth year, and end between the forty-fifth and the fiftieth year. The periods are normally a solar month-from twenty-seven to twenty-eight days, and the menstruation lasts from three to five days. After its conclusion the s.e.xual impulse, even in otherwise frigid women, is in most cases intensified. It is important, moreover, to note the fact that most women, during their periods, show a not insignificant alteration of their mental lives, often exhibiting states of mind that are otherwise foreign to them.
As in many cases it is impossible without other justification to ask whether menses have begun, it is worth while knowing that most women menstruate, according to some authorities, during the first quarter of the moon, and that only a few menstruate during the new or full moon. The facts are very questionable, but we have no other cues for determining that menstruation is taking place. Either the popularly credited signs of it (e. g., a particular appearance, a significant shining of the eyes, bad odor from the mouth, or susceptibility to perspiration) are unreliable, or there are such signs as feeling unwell, tension in the back, fatigue in the bones, etc., which are much more simply and better discovered by direct interrogation, or examination by a physician.
If there is any suspicion that menstruation has influenced testimony or a crime, and if the other, especially the above-mentioned facts, are not against it, we are called upon to decide whether we are considering a mental event, due to the influence of menstruation. Icard[1] has written the best monograph on this subject.
[1] Icard: La Femme dans la Periode Menstruelle. Paris 1890.
Considering the matter in detail, our attention is first called to the importance of the beginning of menstruation. Never is a girl
more tender or quiet, never more spiritual and attractive, nor more inclined to good sense, than in the beginning of p.u.b.erty, generally a little before the menstrual periods have begun, or have become properly ordered. At this time, then, the danger that the young girl may commit a crime is very small, perhaps smaller then at any other time. And hence, it is the more to be feared that such a creature may become the victim of the pa.s.sions of a rou, or may cause herself the greatest harm by mistaken conduct. This is the more possible when the circ.u.mstances are such that the child has little to do, though naturally gifted. Unused spiritual qualities, ennui, waking sensitivity and charm, make a dangerous mixture, which is expressed as a form of interest in exciting experiences, in the romantic, or at least the unusual. s.e.xual things are perhaps wholly, or partly not understood, but their excitation is present and the results are the harmless dreams of extraordinary experiences. The danger is in these, for from them may arise fantasies, insufficiently justified principles, and inclination to deceit. Then all the prerequirements are present which give rise to those well-known cases of unjust complaints, false testimony about seduction, rape, attempts at rape and even arson, accusing letters, and slander.[1] Every one of us is sufficiently familiar with such accusations, every one of us knows how frequently we can not sufficiently marvel how such and such an otherwise quiet, honest, and peaceful girl could perform things so incomprehensible. If an investigation had been made to see whether the feat did not occur at the time of her first mensis; if the girl had been watched during her next mensis to determine whether some fresh significant alteration occurred, the police physician might possibly have been able to explain the event. I know many cases of crimes committed by half-grown girls who would under no circ.u.mstances have been accused of them; among them arson, lese majeste, the writing of numerous anonymous letters, and a slander by way of complaining of a completely fanciful seduction. In one of these cases we succeeded in showing that the girl in question had committed her crime at the time of her first mensis; that she was otherwise quiet and well conducted, and that she showed at her next mensis some degree of significant unrest and excitement. As soon as the menses got their proper adjustment not one of the earlier phenomena could be observed, and the child exhibited no further inclination to commit crimes.[2][1] Cf. Nessel in H. Gross"s Archiv. IV, 343
[2] Cf. Kraft-Ebing Psychosis Menstrualis. Stuttgart 1902.
Creatures like her undergo similar danger when they have to make statements about perceptions which are either interesting in themselves, or have occurred in an interesting way. Here caution must be exercised in two directions. First: Discover whether the child in question was pa.s.sing through her monthly period at the time when she saw the event under discussion, or when she was telling about it. In the former case, she has told of more than could have been perceived; in the second case she develops the delusion that she had seen more than she really had. How unreliable the testimony of youthful girls is, and what mistakes it has caused, are familiar facts, but too little attention is paid to the fact that this unreliability is not permanent with the individuals, and in most cases changes into complete trustworthiness. As a rule, the criminal judge is almost never in a position to determine the inconsistencies in the testimony of a menstruating girl, inasmuch as he sees her, at most, just a few times, and can not at those times observe differences in her love for truth. Fortunately the statements of newly menstruating girls, when untrue, are very characteristic, and present themselves in the form of something essentially romantic, extraordinary, and interesting. If we find this tendency of transforming simple daily events into extraordinary experiences, then, if the testimony of the girl does not agree with that of other witnesses, etc., we are warned. Still greater a.s.surance is easy to gain, by examining persons who know the girl well on her trustworthiness and love of truth before this time. If their statements intensify the suspicion that menses have been an influence, it is not too much to ask directly, to re-examine, and, if necessary, to call in medical aid in order to ascertain the truth. The direct question is in a characteristically great number of cases answered falsely. If in such cases we learn that the observation was made or the testimony given at the menstrual period, we may a.s.sume it probably justifiable to suspect great exaggeration, if not pure invention.
The menstrual period tends, at all ages from the youngest child to the full-grown woman, to modify the quality of perception and the truth of description. Von Reichenbach[1a] writes that sensitivity is intensified during the menstrual period, and even if this famous discoverer has said a number of crazy things on the subject, his record is such that he must be regarded as a clever man and an excellent observer. There is no doubt that his sensitive people were simply very nervous individuals who reacted vigorously to all external
stimulations, and inasmuch as his views agree with others, we may a.s.sume that his observation shows at least how emotional, excitable, and inclined to fine perceptions menstruating women are. It is well- known how sharpened sense-perception becomes under certain conditions of ill-health. Before you get a cold in the head, the sense of smell is regularly intensified; certain headaches are accompanied with an intensification of hearing so that we are disturbed by sounds that otherwise we should not hear at all; every bruised place on the body is very sensitive to touch. All in all, we must believe that the senses of woman, especially her skin sensations, the sensations of touch, are intensified during the menstrual period, for at that time her body is in a "state of alarm." This fact is important in many ways. It is not improbable that one menstruating woman shall have heard, seen, felt, and smelt, things which others, and she herself, would not have perceived at another time. Again, if we trace back many a conception of menstruating women we learn that the boundary between more delicate sensating and sensibility can not be easily drawn. Here we may see the universal transition from sensibility to acute excitability which is a source of many quarrels. The witness, the wounded, or accused are all, to a considerable degree, under its influence. It is a generally familiar fact that the incomparably larger number of complaints of attacks on women"s honor, fall through. It would be interesting to know just how such complaints of menstruating women occur. Of course, n.o.body can determine this statistically, but it is a fact that such trials are best conducted, never exactly four weeks after the crime, nor four weeks after the accusation. For if most of the complaints of menstruating women are made at the period of their menses, they are just as excited four weeks later, and opposed to every attempt at adjustment. This is the much-verified fundamental principle! I once succeeded by its use in helping a respectable, peace-loving citizen of a small town, whose wife made uninterrupted complaints of inuriam causa, and got the answer that his wife was an excellent soul, but, "gets the devil in her during her monthlies, and tries to find occasions for quarrels with everybody and finds herself immediately much insulted."
[1a] Der sensitive Mensch.
A still more suspicious quality than the empty capacity for anger is pointed out by Lombroso,[1] who says that woman during menstruation is inclined to anger and to falsification. In this regard Lombroso may be correct, inasmuch as the lie may be combined
with the other qualities here observed. We often note that most honorable women lie in the most shameless fashion. If we find no other motive and we know that the woman periodically gets into an abnormal condition, we are at least justified in the presupposition that the two are coordinate, and that the periodic condition is cause of the otherwise rare feminine lie. Here also, we are required to be cautious, and if we hear significant and not otherwise confirmed a.s.sertions from women, we must bear in mind that they may be due to menstruation.
[1] C. Lombroso and G. Ferrero. The Female Offender.
But we may go still further. Du Saulle[1] a.s.serts on the basis of far-reaching investigations, that a significant number of thefts in Parisian shops are committed frequently by the most elegant ladies during their menstrual period, and this in no fewer than 35 cases out of 36, while 10 more cases occurred at the beginning of the period.
[1] La Folie devant les Tribunaux Paris 1864. Trait de Medicine Lgale. Paris 1873.Other authorities[2] who have studied this matter have shown how the presentation of objects women much desire leads to theft. Grant that during her mensis the woman is in a more excitable and less actively resisting condition, and it may follow she might be easily overpowered by the seductive quality of pretty jewelry and other knickknacks. This possibility leads us, however, to remoter conclusions. Women desire more than merely pretty things, and are less able to resist their desires during their periods. If they are less able to resist in such things, they are equally less able to resist in other things. In handling those thefts which were formerly called kleptomaniac, and which, in spite of the refusal to use this term, are undeniable, it is customary, if they recur repeatedly, to see whether pregnancy is not the cause. It is well to consider also the influence of menstruation.
[2] Les Voleuses des Grands Magazins. Archives d"Anthropologie Criminelle XVI, 1, 341 (1901).
Menstruation may bring women even to the most terrible crimes. Various authors cite numerous examples in which otherwise sensible women have been driven to the most inconceivable things-in many cases to murder. Certainly such crimes will be much more numerous if the abnormal tendency is unknown to the friends of the woman, who should watch her carefully during this short, dangerous period.
The fact is familiar that the disturbances of menstruation lead to abnormal psychoses. This type of mental disease develops
so quietly that in numerous cases the maladies are overlooked, and hence it is more easily possible, since they are transitive, to interpret them commonly as "nervous excitement," or to pay no attention to them, although they need it.[1]
[1] A. Schwob: Les Psychoses Menstruelles au Point du Vue Medico-legal. Lyon, 1895.
Section 67. (c) Pregnancy.
We may speak of the conditions and effects of pregnancy very briefly. The doubt of pregnancy will be much less frequent than that of menstruation, for the powerful influence of pregnancy on the psychic life of woman is well-known, and it is hence the more important to call in the physician in cases of crimes committed by pregnant women, or in cases of important testimony to be given by such women. But, indeed, the frequently obvious remarkable desires, the significant conduct, and the extraordinary, often cruel, impulses, which influence pregnant women, and for the appearance of which the physician is to be called in, are not the only thing. The most difficult and most far-reaching conditions of pregnancy are the purely psychical ones which manifest themselves in the sometimes slight, sometimes more obvious alterations in the woman"s point of view and capacity for producing an event. In themselves they seem of little importance, but they occasion such a change in the att.i.tude of an individual toward a happening which she must describe to the judge, that the change may cause a change in the judgment. I repeat here also, that it may be theoretically said, "The witness must tell us facts, and only facts," but this is not really so. Quite apart from the fact that the statement of any perception contains a judgment, it depends also and always on the point of view, and this varies with the emotional state. If, then, we have never experienced any of the emotional alteration to which a pregnant woman is subject, we must be able to interpret it logically in order to hit on the correct thing. We set aside the altered somatic conditions of the mother, the disturbance of the conditions of nutrition and circulation; we need clearly to understand what it means to have a.s.sumed care about a developing creature, to know that a future life is growing up fortunately or unfortunately, and is capable of bringing joy or sorrow, weal or woe to its parents. The woman knows that her condition is an endangerment of her own life, that
it brings at least pains, sufferings, and difficulties (as a rule, overestimated by the pregnant woman). Involuntarily she feels, whether she be educated or uneducated, the secrecy, the elusiveness of the growing life she bears, the life which is to come out into the world, and to bring its mother"s into jeopardy thereby. She feels nearer death, and the various tendencies which are attached to this feeling are determined by the nature and the conditions of each particular future mother"s sensations. How different may be the feeling of a poor abandoned bride who is expecting a child, from that of a young woman who knows that she is to bring into the world the eagerly-desired heir of name and fortune. Consider the difference between the feeling of a sickly proletarian, richly blessed with children, who knows that the new child is an unwelcome superfluity whose birth may perhaps rob the other helpless children of their mother, with the feeling of a comfortable, thoroughly healthy woman, who finds no difference between having three or having four children.
And if these feelings are various, must they not be so intense and so far-reaching as to influence the att.i.tude of the woman toward some event she has observed? It may be objected that the subjective att.i.tude of a witness will never influence a judge, who can easily discover the objective truth in the one-sided observation of an event. But let us not deceive ourselves, let us take things as they are. Subjective att.i.tude may become objective falsehood in spite of the best endeavor of the witness, and the examiner may fail altogether to distinguish between what is truth and what poetry. Further, in many instances the witness must be questioned with regard to the impression the event made on her. Particularly, if the event can not be described in words.
We must ask whether the witness"s impression was that an attack was dangerous, a threat serious, a blackmail conceivable, a brawl intentional, a gesture insulting, an a.s.sault premeditated. In these, and thousands of other cases, we must know the point of view, and are compelled to draw our deductions from it. And finally, who of us believes himself to be altogether immune to emotional induction? The witness describes us the event in definite tones which are echoed to us. If there are other witnesses the incomplete view may be corrected, but if there is only one witness, or one whom for some reason we believe more than others, or if there are several, but equally- trusted witnesses, the condition, view-point, and "fact," remain inadequate in us. Whoever has before him a pregnant woman with
her impressions altered in a thousand ways, may therefore well be "up in the air!"[1]
[1] Neumann: Einfluss der Sehw.a.n.gerschaft. Siebold"s Journal f. Geburtshilfe. Vol. II. Hoffbauer: Die Gelste der Schw.a.n.geren. Archiv f. Kriminalrecht. Vol. I. 1817.The older literature which develops an elaborate casuistic concerning cases in which pregnant women exhibited especial desires, or abnormal changes in their perceptions and expressions, is in many directions of considerable importance. We must, however, remember that the old observations are rarely exact and were always made with less knowledge than we nowadays possess.
Section 68. (d) Erotic.
A question which is as frequent as it is idle, concerns the degree of s.e.xual impulse in woman. It is important for the lawyer to know something about this, of course, for many a s.e.xual crime may be more properly judged if it is known how far the woman encouraged the man; and in similar cases the knowledge might help us to presume what att.i.tude feminine witnesses might take toward the matter. First of all, the needs of individual women are as different as those of individual men, and as varied as the need for food, drink, warmth, rest, and a hundred other animal requirements. We shall be unable to find any standard by determining even an average. It is useless to say that s.e.xual sensibility is less in woman than in man; because specialists contradict each other on this matter. We are not aided either by Sergi"s[2] a.s.sertion, that the sensibility is less than the irritability in woman, or by Mantegazza"s statement, that women rarely have such powerful s.e.xual desire that it causes them pain. We can learn here, also, only by means of the interpretation of good particular observations. When, for example, the Italian positivists repeatedly a.s.sert that woman is less erotic and more s.e.xual, they mean that man cares more about the satisfaction of the s.e.xual impulse, woman about the maternal instinct. This piece of information may help us to explain some cases; at least we shall understand many a girl"s mistake without needing immediately to presuppose rape, seduction by means of promises of marriage, etc. Once we have in mind soberly what fruits dishonor brings to a girl,-scorn and shame, the difficulties of pregnancy, alienation from relatives, perhaps even banish-
ment from the paternal home, perhaps the loss of a good position, then the pains and sorrows of child-birth, care of the child, reduction of earnings, difficulties and troubles with the child, difficulties in going about, less prospect of care through wedlock,- these are of such extraordinary weight, that it is impossible to adduce so elementary a force to the s.e.xual impulse as to enable it to veil the outlook upon this outcome of its satisfaction.
[2] Archivio di Psichiatria. 1892. Vol. XIII.
The well-known Viennese gynaecologist, Braun, said, "If it were naturally so arranged that in every wedlock man must bear the second child, there would be no more than three children in any family." His intention is, that even if the woman agrees to have the third child, the man would be so frightened at the pains of the first child-birth that he never again would permit himself to bear another. As we can hardly say that we have any reason for a.s.serting that the s.e.xual needs of woman are essentially greater, or that woman is better able to bear more pain than man, we are compelled to believe that there must be in woman an impulse lacking in man. This impulse must be supposed to be so powerful that it subdues, let us say briefly, all the fear of an illegitimate or otherwise undesirable child-birth, and this is the impulse we mean by s.e.xuality, by the maternal instinct.
It would seem as if nature, at least in isolated cases, desires to confirm this view. According to Icard there are women who have children simply for the pleasure of suckling them, the suckling being a pleasant sensation. If, now, nature has produced a s.e.xual impulse purely for the sake of preserving the species, she has given fuller expression to s.e.xuality and the maternal instinct when she has endowed it with an especial impulse in at least a few definite cases. This impulse will explain to the criminalist a large number of phenomena, especially the accommodation of woman to man"s desires; and from this along he may deduce a number of otherwise difficultly explainable psychical phenomena.
There is, of course, a series of facts which deny the existence of this impulse-but they only seem to. Child-murder, the very frequent cruelty of mothers to their children, the opposition of very young women to bearing and bringing up children (cf. the educated among French and American women), and similar phenomena seem to speak against the maternal instinct. We must not forget, however, that all impulses come to an end where the opposed impulse becomes stronger, and that under given circ.u.mstances even the most powerful impulse, that of self-preservation, may be opposed. All actions of
despair, tearing the beard, beating hands and feet together, rage at one"s own health, and finally suicide may ensue. If the mother kills her own child, this action belongs to the same series as self-damage through despair. The more orderly and numerous actions and feelings in this direction, e. g., the disinclination of women toward bearing children, may be explained also by the fact that it is the consequence of definite conditions of civilization. If we recall what unnatural, senseless, and half crazy habits with regard to nutrition, dressing, social adjustments, etc., civilization and fashion have forced upon us, we do not need to adduce real perversity in order to understand how desire for comfort, how laziness and the scramble for wealth lead to suppression of the maternal instinct. This may also be called degeneration. There are still other less important circ.u.mstances that seem to speak against the maternal instinct. These consist primarily in the fact that the s.e.xual impulse endures to a time when the mother is no longer young enough to bear a child. We know that the first gray hair in no sense indicates the last lover, and according to Tait, a period of powerful s.e.x-impulsion ensues directly after the climacterium. Now of what use, so far as child-birth is concerned, can such an impulse be?
But because natural instincts endure beyond their period of purposive efficiency, it does not follow that they are unconnected with that efficiency; we eat and drink also when the food is superfluous as nourishment. Wonderfully as nature has adjusted the instincts and functions to definite purposes, she still has at no point drawn fixed boundaries and actually destroyed her instrument where the need for it ceased. Just because nature is elsewhere parsimonious, she seems frequently extravagant; yet that extravagance is the cheapest means of attaining the necessary end. Thus, when woman"s pa.s.sion is no longer required for the function of motherhood, its impulsion may yet be counted on for the psychological explanation of more than one criminal event.
What is important, is to count the maternal instinct as a factor in criminal situations. If we have done so, we find explanations not only of s.e.xual impropriety, but of the more subtle questions of the more or less pure relation between husband and wife. What att.i.tude the woman takes toward her husband and children, what she demands of them, what she sacrifices for them, what makes it possible for her to endure an apparently unendurable situation; what, again, undermines directly and suddenly, in spite of seemingly small value, her courage in life;-these are all conditions which
appear in countless processes as the distinguishing and explaining elements, and they are to be understood in the single term, "maternal instinct." For a long time the inexplicability of love and s.e.xual impulse were offered as excuses, but these otherwise mighty factors had to be a.s.signed such remarkable and self-contradictory aspects that only one confusion was added to another and called explanation. Now suppose we try to explain them by means of the maternal instinct.
Section 69. (e) Submerged s.e.xual Factors.
The criminal psychologist finds difficulties where hidden impulses are at work without seeming to have any relation to their results. In such cases the starting-point for explanation is sought in the wrong direction. I say starting-point, because "motive" must be conscious, and "ground" might be misunderstood. We know of countless criminal cases which we face powerless because we do indeed know the criminal but are unable to explain the causal connection between him and the crime, or because, again, we do not know the criminal, and judge from the facts that we might have gotten a clew if we had understood the psychological development of the crime. If we seek for "grounds," we may possibly think of so many of them as never to approach the right one; if we seek motives, we may be far misled because we are able only to bring the criminal into connection with his success, a matter which he must have had in mind from the beginning. It is ever easy for us when motive and crime are in open connection: greed, theft; revenge, arson; jealousy, murder; etc. In these cases the whole business of examination is an example in arithmetic, possibly difficult, but fundamental. When, however, from the deed to its last traceable grounds, even to the att.i.tude of the criminal, a connected series may be discovered and yet no explanation is forthcoming, then the business of interpretation has reached its end; we begin to feel about in the dark. If we find nothing, the situation is comparatively good, but it is exceedingly bad in the numerous cases in which we believe ourselves to have sighted and pursued the proper solution.
Such a hidden source or starting-point of very numerous crimes is s.e.x. That it often works invisibly is due to the sense of shame. Therefore it is more frequent in women. The hidden s.e.xual starting- point plays its part in the little insignificant lie of an unimportant woman witness, as well as in the poisoning of a husband for the sake of a paramour still to be won. It sails everywhere under a
false flag; n.o.body permits the pa.s.sion to show in itself; it must receive another name, even in the mind of the woman whom it dominates.
The first of the forms which the s.e.xual impulse takes is false piety, religiosity. This is something ancient. Friedreich points to the connection between religious activity and the s.e.xual organization, and cites many stories about saints, like that of the nun Blanbekin, of whom it was said, "eam scire desidera.s.se c.u.m lacrimis, et moerore maximo, ubinam esset praeputium Christi." The holy Veronica Juliani, in memory of the lamb of G.o.d, took a lamb to bed with her and nursed it at her breast. Similarly suggestive things are told of St. Catherine of Genoa, of St. Armela, of St. Elizabeth, of the Child Jesus, etc. Reinhard says correctly that sweet memories are frequently nothing more or less than outbursts of hidden pa.s.sion and attacks of sensual love. Seume is mistaken in his a.s.sertion that mysticism lies mainly in weakness of the nerves and colic-it lies a span deeper.
The use of this fact is simple. We must discover whether a woman is morally pure or sensual, etc. This is important, not only in violations of morality, but in every violation of law. The answers we receive to questions on this matter are almost without exception worthless or untrue, because the object of the question is not open to view, is difficult to observe, and is kept hidden from even the nearest. Our purpose is, therefore, best attained by directing the question to religious activity, religiosity, and similar traits. These are not only easy to perceive, but are openly exhibited because of their nature. Whoever a.s.sumes piety, does so for the sake of other people, therefore does not hide it. If religious extravagance can be reliably confirmed by witnesses, it will rarely be a mistake to a.s.sume inclination to more or less stifled s.e.xual pleasure.
Examples of the relationship are known to every one of us, but I want to cite two out of my own experience as types. In one of them the question turned on the fact that a somewhat old, unmarried woman had appropriated certain rather large trust sums and had presented them to her servant. At first every suspicion of the influence of s.e.x was set aside. Only the discovery of the fact that in her ostentatious piety she had set up an altar in her house, and compelled her servant to pray at it in her company, called attention to the deep interest of this very moral maiden in her servant.
The second case dealt with the poisoning of an old, impotent
husband by his young wife. The latter was not suspected by anybody, but at her examination drew suspicion to herself by her unctuous, pious appearance. She was permitted to express herself at length on religious themes and showed so very great a love of saints and religious secrets that it was impossible to doubt that a glowing sensuality must be concealed underneath this religious ash. Adultery could not be proved, she must have for one reason or another avoided it, and that her impotent husband was unsatisfactory was now indubitable. The supposition that she wanted to get rid of him in order to marry somebody else was now inevitable; and as this somebody else was looked for and discovered, the adduction of evidence of her guilt was no longer difficult.
How captious it is to prove direct pa.s.sion and to attach reasonable suspicion thereto, and how necessary it is, first of all, to establish what the concealing material is, is shown in a remark of Kraus,[1] who a.s.serts that the wife never affects to be pa.s.sionate with her husband; her desire is to seduce him and she could not desire that if she were not pa.s.sionate. This a.s.sertion is only correct in general. It is not, however, true that woman has no reason for affectation, for there are enough cases in which some woman, rendered with child by a poor man, desires to seduce a man of wealth in order to get a wealthy father for her child. In such and similar cases, the woman could make use of every trick of seduction without needing to be in the least pa.s.sionately disposed.
[1] A. Kraus: Die Psychologie des Verbrechens. Tbingen 1884.