Gender and Justice: Violence, Intimacy, and Community in Fin-de-Siècle Paris (review)

Article 324 of the late nineteenth-century French penal code "provided that a wife or a husband was excused for killing her or his spouse if the killer's life was in peril at the moment of the murder" (175). However, as Eliza Earle Ferguson astutely demonstrates in her historical examination, Gender and Justice: Violence, Intimacy and Community in Fin-de Siècle Paris, this law was often applied liberally, allowing (most frequently) men to kill their adulterous wives without impunity, and thus arguably privileging personal revenge and retribution over public justice: "Voting to acquit in spite of irrefutable evidence that the accused had committed the deed clearly went contrary to the law" (176).

In her fascinating and thorough study of the role gender played in the French justice system, Ferguson analyzes and compiles statistics based on 264 dossiers from "the Cour d'assises de la Seine from 1871 to the end of the nineteenth century, concerning violent crimes between domestic partners" (8). Ferguson provides a carefully balanced analysis of the cases, quick to remind the reader that, although less frequently than men, women were also perpetrators of violent crimes of passion and experienced an especially high rate of acquittal: "Women who were acquitted for crimes against their partners proved to be exemplary in fulfilling their household duties" (215). Manipulation of the system was not limited to female defendants but also female victims who would play "one patriarchal institution (the state judicial system) against another (their families)" (159).

The first half of Ferguson's historical study consists of information about many of the aforementioned 264 cases, told in snippets and compiled under various chapters and sub-chapters such as "La vie intime," "Parenting," The Distribution of Household Resources," "Links to the Pays," and "Family Ties." This piecemeal approach to presenting each individual case proves both compelling and frustrating. On the one hand, it is incredibly heartening to read about these victims—for the most part, working class people—whose stories in all likelihood would have otherwise gone untold. As the book jacket states, Ferguson does perform excellent detective work in this hefty tome of research. However, since tidbits of information gleaned from dossiers are grouped according to themes, the onus is on the reader to perform his or her own investigative work. In some instances, a single page of text may present thematically relevant information from five different cases. Given the scope and intent of the work, the detailed index is commendable; however, since the names and stories reappear under different headings, a chart of names and a general description of the cases examined may have helped the reader conceptualize a more complete portrait of each individual story.

The second half of Ferguson's work is undeniably of interest to French historians and literary scholars alike. Chapter four, "Reciprocity and Retribution" begins with a quotation from Dumas fils' 1872 essay, L'Homme-femme, in which he proclaims his prescribed treatment of an adulterous wife: "Kill her!"(128). His text provides a springboard for discussion of the political climate of the times with regard to issues of gender and social obligation—such as family honor and punishment. In her sixth chapter, "Stories of Intimate Violence," Ferguson examines the importance of the written word—whether literary texts, newspaper articles or letters written between victims and family members or victims and defendants. Literary scholars will be attracted to her relating of moments at which contemporary literature seemingly influences these cases. For example, according to Ferguson, one defendant describes his "disturbed emotional state before launching into a poem that sounds very much inspired by Rimbaud's 'Les Voyelles'" (207).

Ferguson's examination provides the reader with a meticulous analysis of the important role played by gender in the fin-de-siècle French justice system, all the while astutely painting an unprecedented portrait of everyday life of...