Recent Book: The Female of the Species: Victorian Murderesses
| Author | Daniel P. King |
| Date | 01 April 1978 |
| Published date | 01 April 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7805100208 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
RECENT BOOKS
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
MARY
S.
HARTMAN:
Victorian Murderesses. Schoken Books, New York. $15.
This is a study of 13 nineteenth
century French and English women
accused of murder. Although only six
were convicted - and none executed
-probably all of them were guilty of
the crime charged. All of them were
respectable middle-class women and
included the independently wealthy
wives and daughters of business and
professional men. Of the six women
sent to prison, all but one were released
before their sentences were completed.
The
author
notes - with some justi-
fication -
that
"it
was wise to be
female and respectable if one intended
to dispose of somebody in the nine-
teenth century. Middle-class women
were literally getting away with
murder."
The women described in this book
(at least many of them) are well-known
to social historians: Marie Lafarge,
who poisoned her new husband with
large amounts of arsenic; Constance
Kent, atroubled young lady who killed
her infant half-brother and disposed
of his body in an outhouse; Celestine
Doudet, the sexually-repressed gover-
ness who beat and tortured girls in her
care, two of whom died; Clair Red-
mond, who, after killing her husband's
mistress, confronted her husband:
"Wretch! I did it for
you!"
Historian Mary S.
Hartman
has
written not only an absorbing story of
women who suffocated, beat, stabbed,
shot and poisoned avariety of relatives,
lovers and a pupil,
but
has recon-
structed achapter of social history of
the nineteenth century woman. She
argues
that
these crimes were responses
to the social repression of women in
Victorian times. The book is a
fascinating psychological portrait of
women who lived during a time of
intense social change.
Hartman
has
provided an unvarnished glimpse into
the lives of these notorious
women-
and through them, into the dark
recesses underlying the well-mannered
Victorian drawing-room society.
DANIEL
P.
KING
FIRST UNDERSTAND YOUR CRIMINAL
HAROLD
E.
RUSSELL
and
ALLAN
BEIGEL:
Understanding Human Behaviour
for
Effective Police Work. Basic Books, Inc. New York. $13.95.
This is one of the best of the many
introductions to psychology for police
officers that I have read.
It
is written
without technical jargon and supplies
brief but interesting case histories to
illustrate the types of behaviour most
likely to be encountered by police.
At the end of each section on such
topics as
Drug
Dependency, Riot
Control and Paranoia, the authors
supply what they call "Helpful Hints
to the Law Enforcement Officer". Most
of these are common-sense suggestions
on how to cool down a situation which
will be familiar principles to the ex-
perienced police officer. Nevertheless
they are a useful reminder
that
not
every potentially violent situation has
to be resolved by a show of strength
and would supply a good basis for
recruit instruction.
My chief reservation
about
the book
is its over-emphasis on Freudian
interpretations of behaviour. I do not
believe
that
being able to distinguish
between the Ego-Defence Mechanisms
of Repression, Sublimation
and
Reac-
tion-Formation, for example, has any
value other
than
as an amusing aca-
demic exercise. This Freudian bias
moreover means
that
the wealth of
recent research on
human
development
is sadly neglected; hard fact has been
sacrificed to metaphorical descriptions.
However,
apart
from this rather
technical quibble, I found this a
readable and interesting book which
throws some light on the obscurity of
human
motivation and behaviour.
J.
HILTON
THEN CATCH HIM! - MURDER MANUAL
DANIEL
C.
MYRE:
Death Investigation.
International Association of Chiefs of Police.
If
the International Association of perhaps our A.C.P.O. should send
Chiefs of Police (U.S.A.) can support, over a delegation to examine the role
encourage, produce and publish such of LA.C.P. and see how it is done!
an instructive and helpful book, then Books of this nature should form
209 April 1978
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