«Agitated by shame and fear»: infanticide in the Tauride province in the course of the history of everyday life in the Tauride province of the mid-XIX – early XX centuries

Abstract

How society perceived a woman who decided to take the life of her own illegitimate child is an important question that exposes the negative aspects of the patriarchal system that still dominated society in the mid-XIX – early XX centuries. In the Code on Criminal and Correctional Punishments in Articles 1451 and 1460, it was explicitly stated that it was worth taking into account «the special unfortunate situation of the criminal, agitated by feelings of shame, fear, and weakened by physical suffering», thus removing the image of a cruel child killer from the woman and giving her a chance for pardon. The article analyzes the sources that allow us to assess the attitude of society to those girls who became pregnant out of wedlock. The social situation of future child murderers is highlighted. The author pays special attention to the actual quantitative indicators of stillborn children, correlates medical data with evidence of infanticide. The article describes the main methods of infanticide. The article assesses the punishment applied to women who have taken the life of their children.