Criminal Psychology by Hans Gross (best book recommendations .TXT) 📕

Hence, we interpret women’s testimonies with difficulty and rarely with correctness; we forget that almost every feminine statement contains in itself much more judgment than the testimony of men; we fail to examine how much real judgment it contains; and finally, we weigh this judgment in other scales than those used by the woman. We do best, therefore, when we take the testimony of man and woman together in order to find the right average. This is not easy, for we are unable to enter properly into the emotional life of woman, and can not therefore discount that tendency of hers to drag the objective truth in some biased direction. It might be theoretically supposed that a noble, kindly, feminine feeling would tend to reflect everything as better and gentler, and would tend to excuse and conceal. If that were so we might have a definite standard of valuation, and might be able to discount the feminine bias. But that is so in perhaps no more than half the cases that come before us. In all others woman has allowed herself to be moved to displeasure, and appears as the punishing avenger. Hence, she fights with all her strength on the side that seems to her to be oppressed and innocently persecuted, irrespective of whether it is [1] Introduction to the Study of Sociology.

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the side of the accused or of his enemy. In consequence, we must first of all, when judging her statements, determine the direction in which her emotion impels her, and this can not be done with a mere knowledge of human nature. Nothing will do except a careful study of the specific feminine witness at the time she gives her evidence. And this requires the expenditure of much time, for, to plunge directly into the middle of things without having any means of comparison or relation, is to make judgment impossible or very unsafe. If you are to do it at all you must discuss other things first and even permit yourself the dishonesty of asking about matters which you already know in order to find some measure of the degree of feminine obliqueness. Of course, one discovers here only the degree of obliqueness, not its direction—in the case selected for comparison the woman might have judged too kindly, in the case in hand she may just as well be too rigorous. But all things have a definite limit, and hence, much practice and much goodwill will help us to discover the direction of obliqueness.

When we inquire into the emotional life of the simple, uneducated women, we find it to be fundamentally the same as that of women of other classes, but different in expression, and it is the expression we have to observe. Its form is often raw, therefore difficult to discover. It may express itself in cursing and swearing, but it is still an expression of emotion, just as are the mother’s curses or beatings of her child because it has fallen and hurt itself. But observe that the prevalence of emotion is so thoroughly a feminine condition that it is clearly noticeable only where femininity itself is explicit—

therefore, always weaker among masculine women, and in the single individual most powerful when femininity is most fully developed.

It grows in the child, remains at a constant level when woman becomes completely woman, and decreases when, in advanced age, the differences in sex begin to disappear. Very old men and very old women are also in this matter very close together.

Section 77. (e) Weakness.

“Frailty, thy name is woman,” says Shakespeare, and Corvin explains this in teasing fashion: “Women pray every day, `Lead us not into temptation, for see, dear God, if you do so I can’t resist it.’ ” Even Kant[1] takes feminine weakness as a distinguishing criterion: “In order to understand the whole of mankind we need [1] Menschenkunde. Leipzig 1831.

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only to turn our attention to the feminine sex, for where the force is weaker the tool is so much the more artistic.” Experienced criminalists explain the well-known fact that women are the chief sources of anonymous letters by their weakness. From the physical inferiority of woman her mental inferiority may be deduced, and though we learn a hundred times that small, weak men can be mentally stronger than great and strong ones, it is, of course, natural, that as a rule the outcome of a powerful body is also a powerful mind. The difficulty is to discover in what feminine weakness expresses itself. The frequently joked-about hen-pecking of men has been explained by Voltaire as the fulfilment of the divine purpose of taming men through the medium of the specially created instrument—woman. Victor Hugo calls men only woman’s toys.

“Oh, this lofty providence which gives each one its toy, the doll to the child, the child to the man, the man to the woman, the woman to the devil.” The popular proverb also seems to assign them considerable strength, at least to aged women. For we hear in all kinds of variations the expression, “An old woman will venture where the devil does not dare to tread.” Nor must we underestimate the daily experience of feminine capacity to bear pain. Midwives of experience unanimously assure us that no man would bear what a woman regularly has to, every time she gives birth to a child; and surgeons and dentists assure us similarly. Indeed the great surgeon, Billroth, is said to have asserted that he attempted new methods of operation on women first because they are less subject to pain, for like savages they are beings of a lower status and hence better able to resist than men. In the light of such expressions we have to doubt the assertion that women are distinguished by weakness, and yet that assertion is correct. The weakness must, however, not be sought where we expect to find it, but in the quite different feminine intelligence. Wherever intelligence is not taken into consideration, woman is likely to show herself stronger than man.

She is better able to stand misfortune, to nurse patients, to bear pain, to bring up children, to carry out a plan, to persevere in a plan.

It would be wrong to say that feminine weakness is a weakness of will, for most examples show that women’s wills are strong. It is in matters of intelligence that they fail. When somebody has to be persuaded, we find that a normally-organized man may agree when he is shown a logically-combined series of reasons. But the feminine intelligence is incapable of logic; indeed, we should make a mistake in paying honor to the actual feminine in woman if she <p 363>

were capable of logic. She is rather to be persuaded with apparent reasons, with transitory and sparkling matters that have only the semblance of truth. We find her too ready to agree, and blame her will when it is only her different form of intelligence. She persuades herself in the same way. An epithet, a sparkling epigram, a pacifying reflection is enough for her; she does not need a whole construction of reason, and thus she proceeds to do things that we again call “weak.” Take so thoroughly a feminine reflection as this. “The heart seems to beat—why shouldn’t it beat for somebody?”

and the woman throws herself on the breast of some adventurer The world that hears of this fact weeps over feminine “weakness,”

while it ought really to weep over defective intelligence and bad logic. That the physiological throb of the heart need not become significant of love, that the owner of a beating heart need not be interested in some man, and certainly not in that particular adventurer, she does not even consider possible. She is satisfied with this clean-cut, sparkling syllogism, and her understanding is calm.

The judge in the criminal court must always first consider the weakness of the feminine intelligence, not of the feminine will.

It is supposed to be weakness of will which makes woman gossipy, unable to keep a secret. But here again it is her understanding that is at fault. This is shown by the fact, already thoroughly discussed by Kant, that women are good keepers of their own secrets, but never of the secrets of others. If this were not a defect of intelligence they would have been able to estimate the damage they do. Now, every one of us criminalists knows that the crime committed, and even the plan for it, has in most cases been betrayed by women.

We can learn most about this matter from detectives. who always go to women for the discovery of facts, and rarely without success.

Of course, the judge must not act like a detective, but he must know when something is already a matter of discussion and its source is sought, where to look. He is to look for the woman in the case.

Another consideration of importance is the fact that women who have told secrets have also altered them. This is due to the fact that because they are secrets the whole is not told them and they have had to infer much, or they have not properly understood what was told. Now, if we perceive that only a part of the revealed secret can be correct, the situation may be inferred with complete safety, but only by remembering this curious trait of feminine intelligence. We have only to ask what illogical elements does the matter contain? When these are discovered we have to ask, what <p 364>

is their logical form? If the process is followed properly we get at the truth that what happens happens logically, but what is thought, is thought illogically even by women.

When we summarise all we know about woman we may say briefly: Woman is neither better nor worse, neither more nor less valuable than man, but she is different from him and inasmuch as nature has created every object correctly for its purpose, woman has also been so created. The reason of her existence is different from that of man’s and hence, her nature is different.

Section 78. (b) Children.

The special character of the child has to be kept in mind both when it appears as witness and as accused. To treat it like an adult is always wrong. It would be wrong, moreover, to seek the differences in its immaturity and inexperience, in its small knowledge and narrower outlook. This is only a part of the difference. The fact is, that because the child is in the process of growth and development of its organs, because the relations of these to each other are different and their functions are different, it is actually a different kind of being from the adult. When we think how different the body and actions of the child are, how different its nourishment, how differently foreign influences affect it, and how different its physical qualities are, we must see that its mental character is also completely different. Hence, a difference in degree tells us nothing, we must look for a difference in kind. Observations made by individuals are not enough. We must undertake especial studies in the very rich literature.[1]

Section 79. (I) General Consideration.

One does not need to have much knowledge of children to know that as a rule, children are more honest and straightforward than adults. They are good observers, more disinterested and hence unbiased in giving evidence, but because of their weakness, more subject to the influence of other people. Apart from intentional in-

[1] Tracy: The Psychology of Childhood. Boston 1894.

M. W. Shinn: Notes on the Development of a Child. Berkeley 1894.

L. Ferriani: Minoretti deliquenti. Milano 1895.

J. M. Baldwin: Mental Development in the Child, etc. New York