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

4. Reciprocity and Retribution

chapter 4 Reciprocity and Retribution “Kill her!” Thus Alexandre Dumas fils concluded his infamous 1872 essay, L’Homme-femme, on what a husband should do to his adulterous wife.1 His was the most famous publication in a debate on adultery and the legitimacy of violence , prompted by the notorious case of an aristocrat named Charles-Arthur Leroy du Bourg. He had surprised his wife and her lover half-dressed in a room on the rue des Écoles in Paris. While the lover escaped over the rooftops, du Bourg beat and stabbed his wife so severely that she died three days later—but not before signing a declaration that her husband was right to try to kill her and that she deserved her fate.2 Although he was accused of murder, du Bourg’s sensational trial resulted in his conviction for manslaughter, with extenuating circumstances, and a relatively light sentence of five years in prison. Across the political spectrum, arguments proliferated over whether he should have been convicted at all. The du Bourg verdict was taken as evidence of the inadequacies of the state system of justice in regulating family conflicts—some believed it was too inflexible in not absolving an understandable crime while others decried its failure to protect women from violent men. Indeed, Alexan- dre Dumas wrote his article in response to one by Henry d’Ideville, who recommended that a husband should pardon his faithless wife and seek to correct her behavior without violence. But it was Dumas’s bold approval of deadly violence that seized the public’s interest, and his article, originally published in L’Opinion, sold more than fifty thousand copies as a pamphlet in the first three months after its appearance.3 For years after its original publication, references to the article appeared again and again in newspaper accounts of crimes of passion.4 It is frequently cited, even now, as an example of the worst kind of antifeminism, and its popularity has been ascribed to various fin-de-siècle anxieties about gender and power.5 Dumas’s piece sparked an intense public debate about the use of violence in intimate relationships and husbands’ authority in marriage. Catholic authors pointed out that Jesus had been more forgiving of adulterous women than Dumas.6 Louis Blanc endorsed a tract arguing that such dramas would be averted by equal civil rights and better education for women, as well as legal divorce.7 Feminists seized the occasion to criticize inequalities between husbands and wives.8 Hermance Lesguillon, prolific author of novels, poetry, and studies of women in society, penned a study of L’Homme-femme set in the imaginary salon of one Madame de Montulé. Here, a gathering of educated European women read and criticize Dumas’s text together, dissecting his logic and offering their own critique of marriage. The characters specifically defend the right to legal separation to protect battered wives and applaud the leniency of judgments in infanticide cases where the mother had been seduced and abandoned .9 The book ends with the arrival of a young society girl named Alice, who has just broken off her engagement after reading Dumas’s book. “That ‘Kill her! Kill her!’ kept ringing in my ears, and I was afraid,” she tells the assembled ladies . “How can one promise to be constant forever, when you lose your free will, since you depend on someone else? In marriage, if I answer for myself, for my sweetness, my resignation, my fidelity, can I answer for the character of the man to whom I am eternally chained? Can I swear that I will love only him, and if he becomes detestable in his feelings, if he is violent, arbitrary, despotic, can I promise to be imperturbably patient? Can I love him, if he become antipathetic to me?”10 In her estimation, as a wife her continued love for her husband would depend on his continuing to treat her well and love her in return, and yet there was no guarantee of his constancy in a relationship where he was legally her superior. Reciprocity and Retribution 129 130 Gender and Justice More notably, in Ève contre monsieur Dumas fils, Maria Deraismes turned the tables against irresponsible husbands. Imagining herself giving advice to a young woman, she mirrored Dumas’s advice to a young man and declared: Do not forget, you who are young, beautiful...