Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Jennifer's Topic
I started at looking at the infanticide cases on the Old Bailey's webpage. As I was going through the infanticide cases, I noticed quite a few cases that dealt with women and their bastard children. Many of the cases the women tried to cover up the infanticide by saying the babies were born still born. I looked at both the guilty and not guilty. A lot of the guilty cases people had found the child smothered or stuffed in places. The mothers would try and hide the child. In the cases of the not guilty verdict there were midwives or someone like that there to verify that the child was still born. I am questioning the problem of the societal view on bastards and that as a possible cause to the infanticide of bastard children.
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This is such an interesting topic; I imagine that the stories are fascinating. Do the sources offer any explanation as to why the women chose to kill their babies rather than leave then at the local church/abbey/etc? And something you might want to examine was how punishment was delivered - were circumstances taken into account, resulting in lighter sentences? Did status play a role in the women's decision to kill their babies - eg, was this a especially prevalent among servants or gentry, or is this more or less evenly distributed?
ReplyDeleteYour questions are really interesting to think about. I will definitely think about them. Thank!
DeleteVery interesting topic, not something that I’ve seen research on which makes it all the more intriguing. I would, if possible find out the social standing of the women along with their marital statues and see how that played a role in the situation. Also id look at the location of where the infanticide occurred and see if there was any trends in specific areas. All in all sounds like you’ve got a good start and your headed in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteI think that I am going to do something with the different social statuses.
DeleteI think that this is a very interesting topic and I see that you have put some time into looking into different accounts of bastard children in this time period. I would like to know how these bastard children related to the class the people were in, in this time period and how this effected how they treated the children.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very interesting topic. In my paper I plan on trying to use class as a way to prove the stigma on bastard children.
DeleteGood and disturbing Topic. Still getting to know the Woman and the still born babies but good.
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