Suchergebnisse

Robert Allen, Criminal Justice and Women, 1792-1811
The criminal courts established by the French Revolution depended on the active participation of ordinary citizens, including women. But while they took part in the judicial process as witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants, women found themselves excluded from power, for only men could preside as magistrates or serve on the trial jury - the centerpiece of the new system of criminal justice. Nevertheless, women accused of crimes obtained a higher proportion of acquittals than men. Paradoxically, traditional male notions of women as guided more strongly by emotion than by reason, and as often incapable of independent action, may have worked to the benefit of female defendants. And yet, due to a provision in the law of July 19, 1791, the misdemeanor courts could hear cases of sexual impropriety and punish women whose sexuality seemed to threaten patriarchal authority.