Women Before the Law in France and England: 1830-1870

FAIN: FT-11128-72

Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8559)
Mary S. Hartman (Project Director: July 1972 to present)

Study of 4-5 celebrated French and English murder trials (1830-70) in which the defendents were women. P.I. hopes to test hypothesis that women of the so-called "respectable" classes occasionally resorted to serious crime because of legal impotence and increasingly restrict social convention. P.I. will investigate range of public reaction to the trials as found in contemporary press coverage, pamphlet literature, legal and medical journals, religious publications, popular novels and theatre.