“The insanity defense” appears on Law & Order-type shows so often, you’d think they were going to cast it in a full-time role as a completely different character at some point. But as most of us know, that’s not an accurate reflection of the prevalence of the use of the M’Naghten Rule. It’s also not, as it’s often portrayed, as a Get Out Of Jail Free card; typically, sentencing still includes someone’s freedom being restricted or taken away entirely.
For women of the 1800 and 1900s, though, insanity pleas did get kind of a lot of action, though it rarely worked in their favor.
As we’ve previously established, women and members of the LGBTQ community have had their own sanity (or perceived lack thereof) weaponized against them for centuries and this was also absolutely the case in courts in the Western world. Gender and class determined much of how a trial proceeded. While you might think that the generally low view of women might have been beneficial — they were so weak! And ineffectual! How could they possible be of any threat to anyone? — you would, of course, be incorrect.
One Oxford report detailed how this worked:
Notions of femininity and masculinity influenced the way in which crime was viewed. Consequently, criminality was perceived, judged, and explained in terms of the offender's sex. Moreover, differential opportunities and needs were seen to create sex-specific criminal characteristics and criminal activity types.
Somehow, people who were deemed completely incompetent in basically everything (like, you know, voting) were masterminds as soon as they were on the stand. And not only that, they were dangerous.
Most of the crimes that women were brought into court for were ones which could often be attributed to hysteria — crimes of poverty, for example, or violence which erupted at the hands of an abusive husband. They were also stopped for breaking (or bending, or even being anywhere near) moral laws; just standing around looking somewhat flushed might have gotten you popped for prostitution if a beat cop felt like it. Women were actually more commonly accused and convicted of crimes than they are today, proportionately. This is for a few reasons. One, it’s due to the fact that there were so many subjective ~female-specific crimes~ that can basically be boiled down to such offenses as slutting around and getting pregnant while unmarried (famously an individual pursuit with no other involved parties).
The other reason women were engaging with the law so much more was that they had so many fewer legal recourses. Without social services, alimony (or even legal divorce), or public schools, women — especially women with kids — were kind of on their own and were more likely to resort to such illegal actions as trying to get a job or open their own bank account.
By criminalizing enshrining the dependence on men as an economic and legal imperative—and enshrining oppression in the law and its enforcement—women were better controlled. And the Victorian interest in determining that some people are just plain crazy nested into that structure quite neatly.
“Her manner was quiet and unconcerned”
In the late 19th and early 20th century, criminal defense attorneys were getting really into using mental illness as a tool to help their clients. Which, in a different world and a different time, might have actually been a boon for women who hoped to avoid getting locked up for, say, poisoning their abusive dad. If the officers of the court were interested in figuring out why a woman seemed to suddenly go crazy, they may have uncovered some of the reasons in her life. But they did not.
As an example, I offer this article from The Atlantic about Alice Abbott.
The story is about a young woman who was molested by her stepfather and poisoned him. She stood trial for his murder and “was treated neither as a victim of sex crimes nor as a sane woman who knowingly committed murder.” The author notes that this “was typical of a time in which women suspected of pushing back against their social situations were all-too-often given the diagnosis of ‘insanity’ and institutionalized.”
Alice, a victim, committed a murder which absolutely must have meant she was crazy. As a result, she was put into an institution and everyone lost interest in her because the community was safe of this crazy lady who would probably poison a thousand more men if she had her druthers. Certainly, the only reason she dosed her bad dad’s tea was because of her haywire brain, right?
Want to support my work but are a little light? No problem.
This is sort of at the heart of female insanity as it was characterized for many years (and honestly still is in some ways). I mean, we’re only just now accepting the idea that trauma-informed interactions with the legal system not only provide actual help to people, they also provide a greater service to the community. But a hundred years ago, especially, the idea that women had a reason to feel angry, upset, and even violent wasn’t really part of the equation.
Women were supposed to be passive helpmeets — this is peak Angel In The House adherence time — who accepted their lot and did their best to help society flow smoothly without asking for anything in return. Women who failed to do that must, then, have had something the matter with them because no sane, good woman would ever drop arsenic in the afternoon cuppa.
And even women who weren’t getting stopped by the cops for their pregnancies could still be declared insane if their husbands were like, over their shit or wanted more time with their mistress or whatever. As a result, a woman might get the full-on Yellow Wallpaper treatment just because Mr. said so — which could then lead to actual crazy actions.
May God forgive her!
This gets to the very real fact that a lot of women were dealing with significant mental health challenges and that they weren’t getting any day-to-day supports.
I’ve found dozens of clippings from around the United States which talk about women with four or five or six small children whom she tried to poison because she just couldn’t take it anymore. In a time before the phone, before access to services or even an assumption that a husband might wash a single diaper every now and again, it’s kind of surprising there weren’t more women taking matters into their own hands.
In the case of a criminal trial, a woman who wasn’t let free, nor was she sentenced to some sort of treatment plan that would eventually end. Instead, they were usually placed in one of the nation’s many mental hospitals, the metaphorical junk drawer for the United States where people of manner of deviances were stored.
Most of them were sentenced for life, especially if they’d committed murder—less to punish them and more to keep them away from everyone else. Though punishment was also definitely part of the gig; local newspapers would often run small items with a woman’s first and last name and simply note that she was “declared insane.”
Which like, if I’m being honest, might make me want to burn something to the ground, as well. And again, I’m returned to this idea of like, yeah. I’d probably go crazy, too.