![Sample our Law journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5942/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Law.jpg"})
Abstract
An important though sometimes ignored facet of victimology is the study of the effects of law on increasing (rather than decreasing) victimization. This article discusses the deleterious effects on neonaticide (i.e., infanticides of newborns) of legal realities that served to subtly encourage women to conceal their pregnancies and kill their newborns. Laws that authorized the negative treatment of illegitimate children and their mothers, severe sanctions for fornication, and poor treatment of indentured apprentices and servants created a situation conducive to the commission of neonaticide.
Notes
[1] Due at least in part to its lack of necessity to prove intent, the 1624 Act increased the rate of convictions for neonaticide by 400 percent in Essex (Hoffer & Hull, 1984, p. 23). Hoffer and Hull report that between a fourth and a third of executions in Plymouth and Massachusetts during the 1600s were of women convicted of killing their infants (Hoffer & Hull, 1984, p. xviii).
[2] One interesting twist to the laws governing illegitimate English children in the early Middle Ages was that those born to parents in any of a variety of slave relationships were free because ‘a bastard is always born free since he has no father’ (Pollock & Maitland, Citation1968, p. 423). This practice apparently began in 1326 (Fryde, Citation1996, p. 22).
[3] The obstacles that had to be overcome by historical women have not been fully eliminated; mothers of illegitimate children still face difficulties. In 2003, an odd Florida law was repealed which had forced unwed women to publish their sexual histories in local newspapers if they wanted to put up for adoption children for whom paternity was unknown in case the father wanted to claim custody (Canedy, Citation2003).
[4] That person was assumed to be the mother who concealed her pregnancy, though men were certainly involved in at least some neonaticides as willing accessories or as individuals who subtly or blatantly pressured their lovers to hide the evidence that could land them both in court for fornication.
[5] The problems of abuse were also common among indentured servants who traded their labor for passage fees to the colonies; one analysis of early Maryland court records showed that indentured servants routinely sued for abuse (sometimes bordering on torture as whipping was allowed ‘both to punish and to motivate’ indentured servants), inadequate diet, attempts to keep the servant in service beyond the agreed term, and other work related issues (Cawley, Citation1999, p. 753). The abuses of indentured servants in Maryland became so commonplace, that by 1639, laws had been passed to limit the time of service and by the mid‐1600s, several masters had been indicted for murdering their indentured servants through beatings and other forms of abuse (Cawley, Citation1999, p. 755).
[6] Some scholars estimate that roughly one‐third of executions in colonial America were of women convicted of killing their newborns (e.g. Hoffer & Hull, 1984, p. xviii).
[7] With some changes, this is a situation that remains today. Men who father children through rape or through sexual contact with underage girls are typically prosecuted for those crimes, but the fathers of infants begotten in lawful though non‐marital intercourse cannot be prosecuted for breaching laws they have not broken. It is this reality that angers many feminists; society seems to feel it is acceptable to heap full responsibility for neonaticide on overwhelmed girls who feel they cannot survive if they announce their pregnancies. This reality becomes all the more egregious when one considers that many modern women who conceal their pregnancies, like their historic counterparts, have been abandoned by their lovers who want no financial responsibility for their shared offspring. The elimination of neonaticide cannot become reality until the lasting label of illegitimacy fully loses its negative power, until society comes together to create a supportive environment for young mothers that allows them to succeed and achieve their full potential.