March 8 is International Women's Day. A day on which we celebrate women's emancipation. Dutch women have been internationally known for centuries for their independence and assertiveness. Less well known is that in the seventeenth century they came into contact with the law almost as often as men.
Thieves from poverty
Research shows that seventeenth-century women were not inferior to their male contemporaries in terms of criminality. Property crimes were the most common. Women were vulnerable because of their subordination to men and the absence of their seafaring husbands. The salaries of these men were not paid in full to their families, leaving a large proportion of the sailor's wives in poverty. They could knock on the door of the church and the city council to receive aid for the poor, which they did in large numbers. More than 67% of the women have been temporarily dependent on this. This poverty was the reason women were guilty of theft, burglary, robbery and sale of stolen goods. Almost half of these cases are attributable to women these days. They usually rob their employer, client or acquaintances.
Women rarely committed violent robberies, but they stood their ground when it came to fighting. From the fighting books van Rotterdam shows that about 42 percent of the fighters were women. The ladies – usually from the lower echelons of society – do not tolerate comments or remarks about their sexual honour, behavior or professional honour, and quarrels with neighbors about, for example, dirt on the sidewalk could turn into violence, in which they did not get hit with pots and jars. shunned.
Your honor was your everything
Where personal responsibility, guilt and conscience are central to contemporary Western society, reputation, public and sexual honour, and decency were most important in the seventeenth century. With the change from Catholicism to Protestantism, marriage as a sacrament disappeared. The city council became responsible for marital affairs and legislated that all forms of sexuality outside of marriage were prohibited. A 'fallen' woman had great difficulty surviving and was more likely to be arrested repeatedly. Indecent behavior not only had a bad effect on the reputation of the person in question, but also reflected badly on the neighbors, the neighborhood and even the entire city. That is why women were continuously monitored by family, neighbors and the church.
As a result of this reform, sexual offenses occupies the second place of criminal activity committed by women. That wasn't so much about prostitution, the crimes for which most people were convicted were premarital sex and adultery. More than 65 percent of adulterers in the seventeenth century were women. Often these were married women who entered into new relationships with unmarried men. This was not very strange, because sailors' wives in particular were often alone for years and they did not know whether their husbands were still alive at all. Yet these undying widows were not allowed to remarry until they received an official death certificate from their husbands. This could sometimes take years or even never come at all.
The criminal trial
This would never have come to light if the women had not been arrested. In some of the cases, the offenders were caught in the act, but most of the time they were reported.
Neighbors played an important role in that process. The neighborhood's reputation depended on the people who lived there. When someone misbehaved, it reflected badly on everyone. If indecent behavior was suspected, neighbors, but also relatives and pastors, could approach the aldermen.
Women had a higher risk of getting caught than men. The environment kept a close eye on their behavior and a possible pregnancy made 'their crime' more difficult to conceal.
Often the charges consisted of a series of offenses that indicated a criminal lifestyle. This was especially the case with thieves and prostitutes. In their defense, they often argued that they had committed these offenses out of poverty. Yet these women were severely punished. They had to work in penitentiary houses, were exhibited on the scaffold or banished for a long time. Fighting women usually got away with a reprimand or light punishment, because violence often stood on its own.
Infanticide
The only crime committed almost exclusively by women was infanticide. Because the sexual honor of women was very important, it was considered a great scandal for a girl to give birth to a child without being married. The unmarried women therefore often hid their pregnancy and gave birth to their child in secret, after which they put it to death.
In Rotterdam, for example, many children were thrown into the Maas by their desperate mothers to get rid of the body, in the hope that no one would ever find out about their shame.
Infanticide was the only crime for which women could receive the death penalty. They were strangled to a stake, sometimes preceded by a hand being cut off. Women rarely received this punishment, because it had to be proven that the mother had deliberately killed a living child. This was very difficult without confession, with most women being sentenced to a scaffold or prison sentence for neglecting their firstborn child.
Mitigating circumstances
Suspects could be exonerated by people who vouched for them. Deceived wives played an active role in this process. They were able to take back and forgive their adulterous husband, after which the judge acquitted him. The public disgrace and loss of income was more important to these women than cheating.
When a woman was arrested or falsely charged for a first offense, neighbors were often inclined to vouch for her reputation and morality before the court. It was also possible that the court could place a woman under the supervision of her family, in order to avoid a serious conviction. For example, the Amsterdam Jannetje was acquitted by the court, on the condition that she was locked up in her father's house until her husband returned from the East Indies. He had been gone for six years by then.
Although seventeenth-century Dutch women were very independent compared to women from the rest of the world, there was no question of ideological feminism here, but mainly practical. The city council would rather have women who could provide for themselves than have to pay for poor women and their families.