These forms of expression have, as yet, no relation to character, but they are the starting-point of quite characteristic modes which establish themselves in all corporations, groups, classes, such as students, soldiers, hunters, etc., as well as among the middle classes in large cities. Forms of this kind may become so significant that the use of a single one of them might put the user in question into jeopardy. I once saw two old gentlemen on a train who did not know each other. They fell into conversation and one told the other that he had seen an officer, while jumping from his horse, trip over his sword and fall. But instead of the word sword he made use of the old couleur-student slang word “speer,” and the other old boy looked at him with shining eyes and cried out “Well, brother, what color?”
Still more remarkable is the mutation and addition of new words of especially definite meaning among certain classes. The words become more modern, like so much slang.
The especial use of certain forms is individual as well as social. Every person has his private usage. One makes use of “certainly,” another of “yes, indeed,” one prefers “dark,” another “darkish.” This fact has a double significance. Sometimes a man’s giving a word a definite meaning may explain his whole nature. How heartless and raw is the statement of a doctor who is telling about a painful operation, “The patient sang!” In addition, it is frequently necessary to investigate the connotation people like to give certain words, otherwise misunderstandings are inevitable. This investigation is, as a rule, not easy, for even when it is simple to bring out what is intended by an expression, it is still quite as simple to overlook the fact that people use peculiar expressions for ordinary things. This occurs particularly when people are led astray by the substitution of similars and by the repetition of such a substitution. Very few persons are able to distinguish between identity and similarity; most of them take these two characters to be equivalent. If A and B are otherwise identical, save that B is a little bigger, so that they appear similar, there is no great mistake if I hold them to be equivalent and substitute B for A. Now I compare B with C, C with D, D with E, etc., and each member of the series is progressively bigger than its predecessor. If now I continue to repeat my first mistake, I have in the end substituted for A the enormously bigger E and the mistake has become a very notable one. I certainly would not have substituted E for A at the beginning, but the repeated substitution of similars has led me to this complete incommensurability.
Such substitutions occur frequently during the alterations of meanings, and if you wish to see how some remarkable signification of a term has arisen you will generally find it as a progression through gradually remoter similarities to complete dissimilarity. All such extraordinary alterations which a word has undergone in the course of long usage, and for which each linguistic text-book contains numerous examples, may, however, develop with comparative speed in each individual speaker, and if the development is not traced may lead, in the law-court, to very serious misunderstandings.
Substitutions, and hence, sudden alterations, occur when the material of language, especially in primitive tongues, contains only simple differentiations. So Tylor mentions the fact, that the language of the West African Wolofs contains the word “dagoú,” to go, “dágou,” to stride proudly; “dágana,” to beg dejectedly; “dagána,” to demand. The Mpongwes say, “mì tonda,” I love, and “mi tônda,” I do not love. Such differentiations in tone our own people make also, and the mutation of meaning is very close. But who observes it at all?
Important as are the changes in the meanings of words, they fall short beside the changes of meaning of the conception given in the mode of exposition. Hence, there are still greater mistakes, because a single error is neither easily noticeable nor traceable. J. S. Mill says, justly, that the ancient scientists missed a great deal because they were guided by linguistic classification. It scarcely occurred to them that what they assigned abstract names to really consisted of several phenomena. Nevertheless, the mistake has been inherited, and people who nowadays name abstract things, conceive, according to their intelligence, now this and now that phenomenon by means of it. Then they wonder at the other fellow’s not understanding them. The situation being so, the criminalist is coercively required, whenever anything abstract is named, first of all to determine accurately what the interlocutor means by his word. In these cases we make the curious discovery that such determination is most necessary among people who have studied the object profoundly, for a technical language arises with just the persons who have dealt especially with any one subject.
As a rule it must be maintained that time, even a little time, makes an essential difference in the conception of any object. Mittermaier, and indeed Bentham, have shown what an influence the interval between observation and announcement exercises on the form of exposition. The witness who is immediately examined may, perhaps, say the same thing that he would say several weeks after—but his presentation is different, he uses different words, he understands by the different words different concepts, and so his testimony becomes altered.
A similar effect may be brought about by the conditions under which the evidence is given. Every one of us knows what surprising differences occur between the statements of the witness made in the silent office of the examining justice and his secretary, and what he says in the open trial before the jury. There is frequently an inclination to attack angrily the witnesses who make such divergent statements. Yet more accurate observation would show that the testimony is essentially the same as the former but that the manner of giving it is different, and hence the apparently different story. The difference between the members of the audience has a powerful influence. It is generally true that reproductive construction is intensified by the sight of a larger number of attentive hearers, but this is not without exception. In the words “attentive hearers” there is the notion that the speaker is speaking interestingly and well, for otherwise his hearers would not be attentive, and if anything is well done and is known to be well done, the number of the listeners is exciting, inasmuch as each listener is reckoned as a stimulating admirer. This is invariably the case. If anybody is doing a piece of work under observation he will feel pleasant when he knows that he is doing it well, but he will feel disturbed and troubled if he is certain of his lack of skill. So we may grant that a large number of listeners increases reproductive constructivity, but only when the speaker is certain of his subject and of the favor of his auditors. Of the latter, strained attention is not always evidence. When a scholar is speaking of some subject chosen by himself, and his audience listens to him attentively, he has chosen his subject fortunately, and speaks well; the attention acts as a spur, he speaks still better, etc. But this changes when, in the course of a great trial which excites general interest, the witness for the government appears. Strained attention will also be the rule, but it does not apply to him, it applies to the subject. He has not chosen his topic, and no recognition for it is due him—it is indifferent to him whether he speaks ill or well. The interest belongs only to the subject, and the speaker himself receives, perhaps, the undivided antipathy, hatred, disgust, or scorn, of all the listeners. Nevertheless, attention is intense and strained, and inasmuch as the speaker knows that this does not pertain to him or his merits, it confuses and depresses him. It is for this reason that so many criminal trials turn out quite contrary to expectation. Those who have seen the trial only, and were not at the prior examination, understand the result still less when they are told that “nothing” has altered since the prior examination—and yet much has altered; the witnesses, excited or frightened by the crowd of listeners, have spoken and expressed themselves otherwise than before until, in this manner, the whole case has become different.
In a similar fashion, some fact may be shown in another light by the manner of narration used by a particular witness. Take, as example, some energetically influential quality like humor. It is self-evident that joke, witticism, comedy, are excluded from the court-room, but if somebody has actually introduced real, genuine humor by way of the dry form of his testimony, without having crossed in a single word the permissible limit, he may, not rarely, narrate a very serious story so as to reduce its dangerous aspect to a minimum. Frequently the testimony of some funny witness makes the rounds of all the newspapers for the pleasure of their readers. Everybody knows how a really humorous person may so narrate experiences, doubtful situations of his student days, unpleasant traveling experiences, difficult positions in quarrels, etc., that every listener must laugh. At the same time, the events told of were troublesome, difficult, even quite dangerous. The narrator does not in the least lie, but he manages to give his story the twist that even the victim of the situation is glad to laugh at.[242] As Kräpelin says, “The task of humor is to rob a large portion of human misfortune of its wounding power. It does so by presenting to us, with our fellows as samples, the comedy of the innumerable stupidities of human life.”
Now suppose that a really humorous witness tells a story which involves very considerable consequences, but which he does not really end with tragic conclusions. Suppose the subject to be a great brawl, some really crass deception, some story of an attack on honor, etc. The attitude toward the event is altered with one turn, even though it would seem to have been generated progressively by ten preceding witnesses and the new view of the matter makes itself valid at least mildly in the delivery of the sentence. Then whoever has not heard the whole story understands the results least of all.
In the same way we see really harmless events turned into tragedies by the testimony of a black-visioned, melancholy witness, without his having used, in this case or any other, a single untrue word. In like manner the bitterness of a witness who considers his personal experiences to be generally true, may color and determine the attitude of some, not at all serious, event. Nor is this exaggeration. Every man of experience will, if he is only honest enough, confirm the fact, and grant that he himself was among those whose attitude has been so altered; I avoid the expression—“duped.”
It is necessary here, also, to repeat that the movements of the hands and other gestures of the witnesses while making their statements will help much to keep the correct balance. Movements lie much less frequently than words.[243]
Another means of discovering whether a witness is not seduced by his attitude and his own qualities is the careful observation of the impression his narrative makes on himself. Stricker has controlled the conditions of speech and has observed that so long as he continued to bring clearly described complexes into a causal relation, satisfactory to him, he could excite his auditors; as soon as he spoke of a relation which did not satisfy him the attitude of the audience altered. We must invert this observation; we are the auditors of the witness and must observe whether his own causal connections satisfy him. So long as this is the case, we believe him. When it fails to be so he is either lying, or he himself knows that he is not expressing himself as he ought to make us correctly understand what he is talking about.
What every criminal lawyer must unconditionally know is the dialect of those people he has most to deal with. This is so important that I should hold it conscienceless to engage in the profession of criminology without knowing the dialects. Nobody with experience would dispute my assertion that nothing is the cause of so great and so serious misunderstandings, of even inversions of justice, as ignorance of dialects, ignorance of the manner of expression of human groups. Wrongs so caused can never be rectified because their primary falsehood starts in the protocol, where no denial, no dispute and redefinition can change them.
It is no great difficulty to learn dialects, if only one is not seduced by comic pride and foolish ignorance of his own advantage into believing that popular speech is something low or common. Dialect has as many rights as literary language, is as living and interesting an organism as the most developed form of expression. Once the interest in dialect is awakened, all that is required is the learning of a number of meanings. Otherwise, there are no difficulties, for the form of speech of the real peasant (and this is true all over the world), is always the simplest, the most natural, and the briefest. Tricks, difficult construction, circumlocutions are unknown to the peasant, and if he is only left to himself he makes everything definite, clear, and easily intelligible.
There are many more difficulties in the forms of expression of the uncultivated city man, who has snapped up a number of uncomprehended phrases and tries to make use of them because of their suppositious beauty, regardless of their fitness. Unpleasant as it is to hear such a screwed and twisted series of phrases, without beginning and without end, it is equally difficult to get a clear notion of what the man wanted to say, and especially whether the phrases used were really brought out with some purpose or simply for the sake of showing off, because they sound “educated.”
In this direction nothing is more significant than the use of the imperfect in countries where its use is not customary and where as a rule only the perfect is used; not “I was going,” but “I have gone” (went). In part the reading of newspapers, but partly also the unfortunate habit of our school teachers, compel children to the use of the imperfect, which has not an iota more justification than the perfect, and which people make use of under certain circumstances, i.e., when they are talking to educated people, and then only before they have reached a certain age.
I confess that I regularly mistrust a witness who makes use of an imperfect or some other form not habitual to him. I presuppose that he is a weak-minded person who has allowed himself to be persuaded; I believe that he is not altogether reliable because he permits untrue forms to express his meaning, and I fear that he neglects the content for the sake of the form. The simple person who quietly and without shame makes use of his natural dialect, supplies no ground for mistrust.
There are a few traits of usage which must always be watched. First of all, all dialects are in certain directions poorer than the literary language. E. g., they make use of fewer colors. The blue grape, the red wine, may be indicated by the word black, the light wine by the word white. Literary language has adopted the last term from dialect. Nobody says water-colored or yellow wine, although nobody has ever yet seen white wine. Similarly, no peasant says a “brown dog,” a “brown-yellow cow”—these colors are always denoted by the word red. This is important in the description of clothes. There is, however, no contradiction between this trait and the fact that the dialect may be rich in terms denoting objects that may be very useful, e.g. the handle of a tool may be called handle, grasp, haft, stick, clasp, etc.
When foreign words are used it is necessary to observe in what tendency, and what meaning their adoption embodies.[244]
The great difficulty of getting uneducated people to give their testimony in direct discourse is remarkable. You might ask for the words of the speaker ten times and you always hear, “He told me, I should enter,” you never hear “He told me, ‘Go in.’ ” This is to be explained by the fact, already mentioned, that people bear in mind only the meaning of what they have heard. When the question of the actual words is raised, the sole way to conquer this disagreeable tendency is to develop dialogue and to say to the witness, “Now you are A and I am B; how did it happen?” But even this device may fail, and when you finally do compel direct quotation, you can not be certain of its reliability, for it was too extraordinary for the witness to quote directly, and the extraordinary and unhabitual is always unsafe.
What especially wants consideration in the real peasant is his silence. I do not know whether the reasons for the silence of the countrymen all the world over have ever been sought, but a gossiping peasant is rare to find. This trait is unfortunately exhibited in the latter’s failure to defend himself when we make use of energetic investigation. It is said that not to defend yourself is to show courage, and this may, indeed, be a kind of nobility, a disgust at the accusation, or certainty of innocence, but frequently it is mere incapacity to speak, and inexperienced judges may regard it as an expression of cunning or conviction. It is wise therefore, in this connection, not to be in too great a hurry, and to seek to understand clearly the nature of the silent person. If we become convinced that the latter is by nature uncommunicative, we must not wonder that he does not speak, even when words appear to be quite necessary.
In certain cases uneducated people must be studied from the same point of view as children. Geiger[245] speaks of a child who knew only one boy, and all the other boys were Otho to him because this first boy was called Otho. So the recruit at the Rhine believed that in his country the Rhine was called Donau. The child and the uneducated person can not subordinate things under higher concepts. Every painted square might be a bon-bon, and every painted circle a plate. New things receive the names of old ones. And frequently the skill of the criminalists consists in deriving important material from apparently worthless statements, by way of discovering the proper significance of simple, inartistic, but in most cases excellently definitive images. It is of course self-evident that one must absolutely refrain from trickery.
If it is true that by the earnest and repeated study of the meanings of words we are likely to find them in the end containing much deeper sense and content than at the beginning, we are compelled to wonder that people are able to understand each other at all. For if words do not have that meaning which is obvious in their essential denotation, every one who uses them supplies according to his inclination, and status the “deeper and richer sense.” As a matter of fact many more words are used pictorially than we are inclined to think. Choose at random, and you find surprisingly numerous words with exaggerated denotations. If I say, “I posit the case, I press through, I jump over, the proposition, etc.,” these phrases are all pictures, for I have posited nothing, I have pressed through no obstacle, and have jumped over no object. My words, therefore, have not stood for anything real, but for an image, and it is impossible to determine the remoteness of the latter from the former, or the variety of direction and extent this remoteness may receive from each individual. Wherever images are made use of, therefore, we must, if we are to know what is meant, first establish how and where the use occurred. How frequently we hear, e.g., of a “four-cornered” table instead of a square table; a “very average” man, instead of a man who is far below the average. In many cases this false expression is half-consciously made for the purpose of beautifying a request or making it appear more modest. The smoker says: “May I have some light,” although you know that it is perfectly indifferent whether much or little light is taken from the cigar. “May I have just a little piece of roast,” is said in order to make the request that the other fellow should pass the heavy platter seem more modest. And again: “Please give me a little water,” does not modify the fact that the other fellow must pass the whole water flask, and that it is indifferent to him whether afterwards you take much or little water. So, frequently, we speak of borrowing or lending, without in the remotest thinking of returning. The student says to his comrade, “Lend me a pen, some paper, or some ink,” but he has not at all any intention of giving them back. Similar things are to be discovered in accused or witnesses who think they have not behaved properly, and who then want to exhibit their misconduct in the most favorable light. These beautifications frequently go so far and may be made so skilfully that the correct situation may not be observed for a long time. Habitual usage offers, in this case also, the best examples. For years uncountable it has been called a cruel job to earn your living honestly and to satisfy the absolute needs of many people by quickly and painlessly slaughtering cattle. But, when somebody, just for the sake of killing time, because of ennui, shoots and martyrs harmless animals, or merely so wounds them that if they are not retrieved they must die terrible deaths, we call it noble sport. I should like to see a demonstration of the difference between killing an ox and shooting a stag. The latter does not require even superior skill, for it is much more difficult to kill an ox swiftly and painlessly than to shoot a stag badly, and even the most accurate shot requires less training than the correct slaughter of an ox. Moreover, it requires much more courage to finish a wild ox than to destroy a tame and kindly pheasant. But usage, once and for all, has assumed this essential distinction between men, and frequently this distinction is effective in criminal law, without our really seeing how or why. The situation is similar in the difference between cheating in a horse trade and cheating about other commodities. It occurs in the distinction between two duellists fighting according to rule and two peasant lads brawling with the handles of their picks according to agreement. It recurs again in the violation of the law by somebody “nobly inspired with champagne,” as against its violation by some “mere” drunkard. But usage has a favoring, excusing intent for the first series, and an accusing, rejecting intent for the latter series. The different points of view from which various events are seen are the consequence of the varieties of the usage which first distinguished the view-points from one another.
There is, moreover, a certain dishonesty in speaking and in listening where the speaker knows that the hearer is hearing a different matter, and the hearer knows that the speaker is speaking a different matter. As Steinthal[246] has said, “While the speaker speaks about things that he does not believe, and the reality of which he takes no stock in, his auditor, at the same time, knows right well what the former has said; he understands correctly and does not blame the speaker for having expressed himself altogether unintelligibly.” This occurs very frequently in daily routine, without causing much difficulty in human intercourse, but it ought, for this reason, to occur inversely in our conversation with witnesses and accused. I know that the manner of speaking just described is frequently used when a witness wants to clothe some definite suspicion without expressing it explicitly. In such cases, e.g., the examiner as well as the witness believes that X is the criminal. For some reason, perhaps because X is a close relation of the witness or of “the man higher up,” neither of them, judge nor witness, wishes to utter the truth openly, and so they feel round the subject for an interminable time. If now, both think the same thing, there results at most only a loss of time, but no other misfortune. When, however, each thinks of a different object, e.g., each thinks of another criminal, but each believes mistakenly that he agrees with the other, their separating without having made explicit what they think, may lead to harmful misunderstandings. If the examiner then believes that the witness agrees with him and proceeds upon this only apparently certain basis, the case may become very bad. The results are the same when a confession is discussed with a suspect, i.e., when the judge thinks that the suspect would like to confess, but only suggests confession, while the latter has never even thought of it. The one thing alone our work permits of is open and clear speaking; any confused form of expression is evil.
Nevertheless, confusions often occur involuntarily, and as they can not be avoided they must be understood. Thus, it is characteristic to understand something unknown in terms of some known example, i.e., the Romans who first saw an elephant, called it “bos lucani.” Similarly “wood-dog” = wolf; “sea-cat” = monkey, etc. These are forms of common usage, but every individual is accustomed to make such identifications whenever he meets with any strange object. He speaks, therefore, to some degree in images, and if his auditor is not aware of the fact he can not understand him. His speaking so may be discovered by seeking out clearly whether and what things were new and foreign to the speaker. When this is learned it may be assumed that he will express himself in images when considering the unfamiliar object. Then it will not be difficult to discover the nature and source of the images.
Similar difficulties arise with the usage of foreign terms. It is of course familiar that their incorrect use is not confined to the uneducated. I have in mind particularly the weakening of the meaning in our own language. The foreign word, according to Volkmar, gets its significance by robbing the homonymous native word of its definiteness and freshness, and is therefore sought out by all persons who are unwilling to call things by their right names. The “triste position” is far from being so sad as the “sad” position. I should like to know how a great many people could speak, if they were not permitted to say malheur, méchant, perfide, etc.—words by means of which they reduce the values of the terms at least a degree in intensity of meaning. The reason for the use of these words is not always the unwillingness of the speaker to make use of the right term, but really because it is necessary to indicate various degrees of intensity for the same thing without making use of attributes or other extensions of the term. Thus the foreign word is in some degree introduced as a technical expression. The direction in which the native word weakens, however, taken as that is intended by the individual who uses its substitute, is in no sense universally fixated. The matter is entirely one of individual usage and must be examined afresh in each particular case.
The striving for abbreviated forms of expression,—extraordinary enough in our gossipy times,—manifests itself in still another direction. On my table, e.g., there is an old family journal, “From Cliff to Sea.” What should the title mean? Obviously the spatial distribution of the subject of its contents and its subscribers—i.e., “round about the whole earth,” or “Concerning all lands and all peoples.” But such titles would be too long; hence, they are synthesized into, “From Cliff to Sea,” without the consideration that cliffs often stand right at the edge of the sea, so that the distance between them may be only the thickness of a hair:—cliff and sea are not local opposites.
Or: my son enters and tells me a story about an “old semester.” By “old semester” he means an old student who has spent many terms, at least more than are required or necessary, at the university. As this explanation is too long, the whole complex is contracted into “old semester,” which is comfortable, but unintelligible to all people not associated with the university. These abbreviations are much more numerous than, as a rule, they are supposed to be, and must always be explained if errors are to be avoided. Nor are silent and monosyllabic persons responsible for them; gossipy individuals seek, by the use of them, to exhibit a certain power of speech. Nor is it indifferent to expression when people in an apparently nowise comfortable fashion give approximate circumlocutive figures, e.g., half-a-dozen, four syllables, instead of the monosyllable six; or “the bell in the dome at St. Stephen’s has as many nicks as the year has days,” etc. It must be assumed that these circumlocutive expressions are chosen, either because of the desire to make an assertion general, or because of the desire for some mnemonic aid. It is necessary to be cautious with such statements, either because, as made, they only “round out” the figures or because the reliability of the aid to memory must first be tested. Finally, it is well-known that foreign words are often changed into senseless words of a similar sound. When such unintelligible words are heard, very loud repeated restatement of the word will help in finding the original.
One of the most difficult tasks of the criminalist who is engaged in psychological investigation is the judgment of woman. Woman is not only somatically and psychically rather different from man; man never is able wholly and completely to put himself in her place. In judging a male the criminalist is dealing with his like, made of the same elements as he, even though age, conditions of life, education, and morality are as different as possible. When the criminalist is to judge a gray-beard whose years far outnumber his own, he still sees before him something that he may himself become, built as he, but only in a more advanced stage. When he is studying a boy, he knows what he himself felt and thought as boy. For we never completely forget attitudes and judgments, no matter how much time has elapsed—we no longer grasp them en masse, but we do not easily fail to recall how they were constructed. Even when the criminalist is dealing with a girl before puberty he is not without some point of approach for his judgment, since boys and girls are at that period not so essentially different as to prevent the drawing of analogous inferences by the comparison of his own childhood with that of the girl.
But to the nature of woman, we men totally lack avenues of approach. We can find no parallel between women and ourselves, and the greatest mistakes in criminal law were made where the conclusions would have been correct if the woman had been a man.[248] We have always estimated the deeds and statements of women by the same standards as those of men, and we have always been wrong. That woman is different from man is testified to by the anatomist, the physician, the historian, the theologian, the philosopher; every layman sees it for himself. Woman is different in appearance, in manner of observation, of judgment, of sensation, of desire, of efficacy,—but we lawyers punish the crimes of woman as we do those of man, and we count her testimony as we do that of man. The present age is trying to set aside the differences in sex and to level them, but it forgets that the law of causation is valid here also. Woman and man have different bodies, hence they must have different minds. But even when we understand this, we proceed wrongly in the valuation of woman. We can not attain proper knowledge of her because we men were never women, and women can never tell us the truth because they were never men.
Just as a man is unable to discover whether he and his neighbor call the same color red, so, eternally, will the source of the indubitably existent differences in the psychic life of male and female be undiscovered. But if we can not learn to understand the essence of the problem of the eternal feminine, we may at least study its manifestations and hope to find as much clearness as the difficulty of the subject will permit. An essential, I might say, unscientific experience seems to come to our aid here. In this matter, we trust the real researches, the determinations of scholars, much less than the conviction of the people, which is expressed in maxims, legal differences, usage, and proverbs. We instinctively feel that the popular conception presents the experience of many hundreds of years, experiences of both men and women. So that we may assume that the mistakes of the observations of individuals have corrected each other as far as has been possible, and yield a kind of average result. Now, even if averages are almost always wrong, either because they appear too high or too low, the mistake is not more than half a mistake. If in a series of numbers the lowest was 4, the highest 12, and the average 8, and if I take the latter for the individual problem, I can at most have been mistaken about four, never about eight, as would have been the case if I had taken 4 or 12 for each other. The attitude of the people gives us an average and we may at least assume that it would not have maintained itself, either as common law or as proverb, if centuries had not shown that the mistake involved was not a very great one.
In any event, the popular method was comparatively simple. No delicate distinctions were developed. A general norm of valuation was applied to woman and the result showed that woman is simply a less worthy creature. This conception we find very early in the history of the most civilized peoples, as well as among contemporary backward nations and tribes. If, now, we generally assume that the culture of a people and the position of its women have the same measure, it follows only that increasing education revealed that the simple assumption of the inferiority of woman was not correct, that the essential difference in psyche between man and woman could not be determined, and that even today, the old conception half unconsciously exercises an influence on our valuation of woman, when in any respect we are required to judge her. Hence, we are in no wise interested in the degree of subordination of woman among savage and half-savage peoples, but, on the other hand, it is not indifferent for us to know what the situation was among peoples and times who have influenced our own culture. Let us review the situation hastily.
A number of classical instances which are brought together by Fink[249] and Smith,[250] show how little the classic Greek thought of woman, and W. Becker[251] estimates as most important the fact that the Greek always gave precedence to children and said, “τἑχνα χαἱ γυναἱχας.” The Greek naturalists, Hippocrates and Aristotle, modestly held woman to be half human, and even the poet Homer is not free from this point of view (cf. the advice of Agamemnon to Odysseus). Moreover, he speaks mostly concerning the scandalmongering and lying of women, while later, Euripides directly reduces the status of women to the minimum (cf. Iphigenia).
The attention of ancient Rome is always directed upon the puzzling, sphinx-like, unharmonious qualities in woman. Horace gives it the clearest expression, e.g., “Desinite in piscem mulier formosa superne.”
The Orientals have not done any better for us. The Chinese assert that women have no souls. The Mohammedan believes that women are denied entrance to paradise, and the Koran (xliii, 17) defines the woman as a creature which grows up on a soil of finery and baubles, and is always ready to nag. How well such an opinion has sustained itself, is shown by the Ottomanic Codex 355, according to which the testimony of two women is worth as much as the testimony of one man. But even so, the Koran has a higher opinion of women than the early church fathers. The problem, “An mulier habeat animam,” was often debated at the councils. One of them, that of Macon, dealt earnestly with the MS. of Acidalius, “Mulieres homines non esse.” At another, women were forbidden to touch the Eucharist with bare hands. This attitude is implied by the content of countless numbers of evil proverbs which deal with the inferior character of woman, and certainly by the circumstance that so great a number of women were held to be witches, of whom about 100,000 were burned in Germany alone. The statutes dealt with women only in so far as their trustworthiness as witnesses could be depreciated. The Bambergensis (Art. 76), for example, permits the admission of young persons and women only in special cases, and the quarrels of the older lawyers concerning the value of feminine testimony is shown by Mittermaier.[252]
If we discount Tacitus’ testimony concerning the high status of women among the Germanic tribes on the basis that he aimed at shaming and reforming his countrymen, we have a long series of assertions, beginning with that of the Norseman Havamál,—which progressively speaks of women in depreciatory fashion, and calls them inconstant, deceitful, and stupefying,—to the very modern maxim which brings together the extreme elevation and extreme degradation of woman: “Give the woman wings and she is either an angel or a beast.” Terse as this expression is, it ought to imply the proper point of view—women are either superior or inferior to us, and may be both at the same time. There are women who are superior and there are women who are inferior, and further, a single woman may be superior to us in some qualities and inferior in others, but she is not like us in any. The statement that woman is as complete in her own right as man is in his, agrees with the attitude above-mentioned if we correlate the superiority and inferiority of women with “purposefulness.” We judge a higher or lower organism from our standpoint of power to know, feel, and do, but we judge without considering whether these organisms imply or not the purposes we assume for them. Thus a uniform, monotonous task which is easy but requires uninterrupted attention can be better performed by an average, patient, unthinking individual, than by a genial fiery intellect. The former is much more to the purpose of this work than the latter, but he does not stand higher. The case is so with woman. For many of the purposes assigned to her, she is better constructed. But whether this construction, from our standpoint of knowing and feeling, is to be regarded as higher or lower is another question.
Hence, we are only in a sense correct, when calling some feminine trait which does not coincide with our own a poorer, inferior quality. We are likely to overlook the fact that this quality taken in itself, is the right one for the nature and the tasks of woman, whereas we ought with the modern naturalist assume that every animal has developed correctly for its own purposes. If this were not the case with woman she would be the first exception to the laws of natural evolution. Hence, our task is not to seek out peculiarities and rarities in woman, but to study her status and function as given her by nature. Then we shall see that what we would otherwise have called extraordinary appears as natural necessity. Of course many of the feminine qualities will not bring us back to the position which has required them. Then we may or may not be able to infer it according to the laws of general co-existence, but whether we establish anything directly or indirectly must be for the time, indifferent; we do know the fact before us. If we find only the pelvis of a human skeleton we should be able to infer from its broad form that it belonged to a woman and should be able to ground this inference on the business of reproduction which is woman’s. But we shall also be able, although we have only the pelvis before us, to make reliable statements concerning the position of the bones of the lower extremities of this individual. And we shall be able to say just what the form of the thorax and the curve of the vertebral column were. This, also, we shall have in our power, more or less, to ground on the child-bearing function of woman. But we might go still further and say that this individual, who, according to its pelvic cavity, was a woman, must have had a comparatively smaller skull, and although we can not correlate the present mark with the child-bearing function or any other special characteristic of woman, we may yet infer it safely, because we know that this smaller skull capacity stands in regular relation to the broad pelvis, etc. In a like manner it will be possible to bring together collectively various psychical differences of woman, to define a number of them as directly necessary, and to deduce another number from their regular co-existence. The certainty here will be the same as in the former case, and once it is attained we shall be able satisfactorily to interpret the conduct, etc., of woman.
Before turning to feminine psychology I should like briefly to touch upon the use of the literature in our question and indicate that the poets’ results are not good for us so long as we are trying to satisfy our particular legal needs. We might, of course, refer to the poet for information concerning the feminine heart,—woman’s most important property,—but the historically famous knowers of the woman’s heart leave us in the lurch and even lead us into decided errors. We are not here concerned with the history of literature, nor with the solution of the “dear riddle of woman;” we are dry-souled lawyers who seek to avoid mistakes at the expense of the honor and liberty of others, and if we do not want to believe the poets it is only because of many costly mistakes. Once we were all young and had ideals. What the poets told us we supposed to be the wisdom of life—nobody else ever offers any—and we wanted compulsorily to solve the most urgent of human problems with our poetical views. Illusions, mistakes, and guiltless remorse, were the consequence of this topsy-turvy work.
Of course I do not mean to drag our poets to court and accuse them of seducing our youth with false gods—I am convinced that if the poets were asked they would tell us that their poetry was intended for all save for physicians and criminalists. But it is conceivable that they have introduced points of view that do not imply real life. Poetical forms do not grow up naturally, and then suddenly come together in a self-originated idea. The poet creates the idea first, and in order that this may be so the individual form must evolve according to sense. The more natural and inevitable this process becomes the better the poem, but it does not follow that since we do not doubt it because it seems so natural, it mirrors the process of life. Not one of us criminalists has ever seen a form as described in a poem—least of all a woman. Obviously, in our serious and dry work, we may be able to interpret many an observation and assertion of the poet as a golden truth, but only when we have tested its correctness for the daily life. But it must be understood that I am not saying here, that we ourselves might have been able to make the observation, or to abstract a truth from the flux of appearances, or at least to set it in beautiful, terse, and I might say convincing, form. I merely assert, that we must be permitted to examine whether what has been beautifully said may be generalized, and whether we then have found the same, or a similar thing, in the daily life. Paradoxical as it sounds, we must never forget that there is a kind of evidentiality in the form of beauty itself. One of Klopstock’s remarkable psalms begins: “Moons wander round the earth, earths round suns, the whole host of suns wander round a greater sun, Our Father, that art thou.” In this inexpressibly lofty verse there is essentially, and only in an extremely intensified fashion, evidence of the existence of God, and if the convinced atheist should read this verse he would, at least for the moment, believe in his existence. At the same time, a real development of evidence is neither presented nor intended. There are magnificent images, unassailable true propositions: the moon goes round about the earth, the earth about the sun, the whole system around a central sun—and now without anything else, the fourth proposition concerning the identity of the central sun with our heavenly Father is added as true. And the reader is captivated for at least a minute! What I have tried here to show by means of a drastic example occurs many times in poems, and is especially evident where woman is the subject, so that we may unite in believing that the poet can not teach us that subject, that he may only lead us into errors.
To learn about the nature of woman and its difference from that of man we must drop everything poetical. Most conscientiously we must drop all cynicism and seek to find illumination only in serious disciplines. These disciplines may be universal history and the history of culture, but certainly not memoirs, which always represent subjective experience and one-sided views. Anatomy, physiology, anthropology, and serious special literature, presupposed, may give us an unprejudiced outlook, and then with much effort we may observe, compare, and renew our tests of what has been established, sine ira et studio, sine odio et gratia.
I subjoin a list of sources and of especial literature which also contains additional references.[253]
There are many attempts to determine the difference between the feminine and masculine psyche. Volkmar in his “Textbook of Psychology” has attempted to review these experiments. But the individual instances show how impossible is clear and definite statement concerning the matter. Much is too broad, much too narrow; much is unintelligible, much at least remotely correct only if one knows the outlook of the discoverer in question, and is inclined to agree with him. Consider the following series of contrasts.
| Male | Female |
| Individuality | Receptivity (Burdach, Berthold) |
| Activity | Passivity (Daub, Ulrici, Hagemann) |
| Leadership | Imitativeness (Schleiermacher) |
| Vigor | Sensitivity to stimulation (Beneke) |
| Conscious activity | Unconscious activity (Hartmann) |
| Conscious deduction | Unconscious induction (Wundt) |
| Will | Consciousness (Fischer) |
| Independence | Completeness (Krause, Lindemann) |
| Particularity | Generally generic (Volkmann) |
| Negation | Affirmation (Hegel and his school) |
None of these contrasts are satisfactory, many are unintelligible. Burdach’s is correct only within limits and Hartmann’s is approximately true if you accept his point of view. I do not believe that these explanations would help anybody or make it easier for him to understand woman. Indeed, to many a man they will appear to be saying merely that the psyche of the male is masculine, that of the female feminine. The thing is not to be done with epigrams however spirited. Epigrams merely tend to increase the already great confusion.
Hardly more help toward understanding the subject is to be derived from certain expressions which deal with a determinate and also with a determining trait of woman. For example, the saying, “On forbidden ground woman is cautious and man keen,” may, under some circumstances, be of great importance in a criminal case, particularly when it is necessary to fix the sex of the criminal. If the crime was cautiously committed a woman may be inferred, and if swiftly, a man. But that maxim is deficient in two respects. Man and woman deal in the way described, not only in forbidden fields, but generally. Again, such characteristics may be said to be ordinary but in no wise regulative: there are enough cases in which the woman was much keener than the man and the man much more cautious than the woman.
The greatest danger of false conceptions lies in the attribution of an unproved peculiarity to woman, by means of some beautifully expressed, and hence, apparently true, proverb. Consider the well known maxim: Man forgives a beautiful woman everything, woman nothing. Taken in itself the thing is true; we find it in the gossip of the ball-room, and in the most dreadful of criminal cases. Men are inclined to reduce the conduct of a beautiful sinner to the mildest and least offensive terms, while her own sex judge her the more harshly in the degree of her beauty and the number of its partisans. Now it might be easy in an attempt to draw the following consequences from the correctness of this proposition: Men are generally inclined to forgive in kindness, women are the unforgiving creatures. This inference would be altogether unjustified, for the maxim only incidentally has woman for its subject; it might as well read: Woman forgives a handsome man everything, man nothing. What we have at work here is the not particularly remarkable fact that envy plays a great rôle in life.
Another difficulty in making use of popular truths in our own observations, lies in their being expressed in more or less definite images. If you say, for example, “Man begs with words, woman with glances,” you have a proposition that might be of use in many criminal cases, inasmuch as things frequently depend on the demonstration that there was or was not an amour between two people (murder of a husband, relation of the widow with a suspect).
Now, of course, the judge could not see how they conversed together, how he spoke stormily and she turned her eyes away. But suppose that the judge has gotten hold of some letters—then if he makes use of the maxim, he will observe that the man becomes more explicit than the woman, who, up to a certain limit, remains ashamed. So if the man speaks very definitely in his letters, there is no evidence contradictory to the inference of their relationship, even though nothing similar is to be found in her letters. The thing may be expressed in another maxim: What he wants is in the lines; what she wants between the lines.
The great difficulty of distinguishing between man and woman is mentioned in “Levana oder Erziehungslehre,” by Jean Paul, who says, “A woman can not love her child and the four continents of the world at the same time. A man can.” But who has ever seen a man love four continents? “He loves the concept, she the appearance, the particular.” What lawyer understands this? And this? “So long as woman loves, she loves continuously, but man has lucid intervals.” This fact has been otherwise expressed by Grabbe, who says: “For man the world is his heart, for woman her heart is the world.” And what are we to learn from this? That the love of woman is greater and fills her life more? Certainly not. We only see that man has more to do than woman, and this prevents him from depending on his impressions, so that he can not allow himself to be completely captured by even his intense inclinations. Hence the old proverb: Every new affection makes man more foolish and woman wiser, meaning that man is held back from his work and effectiveness by every inclination, while woman, each time, gathers new experiences in life. Of course, man also gets a few of these, but he has other and more valuable opportunities of getting them, while woman, who has not his position in the midst of life, must gather her experiences where she may.
Hence, it remains best to stick to simple, sober discoveries which may be described without literary glamour, and which admit of no exception. Such is the statement by Friedreich[254]: “Woman is more excitable, more volatile and movable spiritually, than man; the mind dominates the latter, the emotions the former. Man thinks more, woman senses more.” These ungarnished, clear words, which offer nothing new, still contain as much as may be said and explained. We may perhaps supplement them with an expression of Heusinger’s, “Women have much reproductive but little productive imaginative power. Hence, there are good landscape and portrait painters among women, but as long as women have painted there has not been any great woman-painter of history. They make poems, romances, and sonnets, but not one of them has written a good tragedy.” This expression shows that the imaginative power of woman is really more reproductive than productive, and it may be so observed in crimes and in the testimony of witnesses.
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 assumed 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 assistance 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.
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 sex 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 puberty 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 sex. This expression is of great importance to the criminalist; it is often enough to recall these circumstances 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.
We men, in our own life, have no analogy, 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 sexual 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[255] has written the best monograph on this subject.
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 puberty, 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 than at any other time. And hence, it is the more to be feared that such a creature may become the victim of the passions of a roué, or may cause herself the greatest harm by mistaken conduct. This is the more possible when the circumstances 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. Sexual 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.[256] 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 circumstances 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.[257]
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 passing 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 assurance 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 assume 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[258] 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 assume 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, nobody 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.”
A still more suspicious quality than the empty capacity for anger is pointed out by Lombroso,[259] 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 assertions from women, we must bear in mind that they may be due to menstruation.
But we may go still further. Du Saulle[260] asserts 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.
Other authorities[261] 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.
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.[262]
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 attitude 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 assumed 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, over-estimated 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.