6 - Women and Honor-Related Criminal Affaires

Summary

In a pays characterized by a culture of honor, judicial archives unsurprisingly reflect the inhabitants’ preoccupation with adherence to its all-pervasive code. Criminal court records shed light on the quotidian behavior of its people and illuminate not only the shared values that led them to cohere but also the innumerable tensions that caused relationships to fracture. In short, the inhabitants were united both by what they shared and by what divided them: the prevailing code of honor. Men and women of all social strata participated in a perpetual contest for honor and constantly attempted to decipher and then observe the unwritten rules and regulations meant to govern their conduct. Honor was the cultural currency in which everyone dealt: each party logically demanded what he or she considered his or her rightful share. Even today, most disagreements ultimately involve “face,” or honor, Ruff tells us. Crime remains largely motivated by the desire to save “face” and avoid shame. Although disagreeing on how best to defend honor, reclaim it, or deny someone else’s, all inhabitants of the Sarladais agreed on its worth and participated in the ongoing discourse of honor.

This chapter will examine women's participation in the culture of honor by analyzing their roles in the criminal justice system as perpetrators, victims, or plaintiffs. One must bear in mind, however, that, irrespective of a woman's role in the civil or criminal judicial system, her involvement not only raised legal issues but also focused attention on whether her conduct was considered honorable or shameful for her gender. Viewing female criminality through the lens of gender can be particularly illuminating because physical violence—especially female violence against husbands— was culturally coded. As previously discussed, both women and men actively enacted and enforced society's code of honor via words and deeds that were meant either to protect or enhance their own reputations or to admonish and chastise others who failed to recognize them. Society only begrudgingly granted honor, which was always at risk, always contested, and constantly in need of maintenance.

In eighteenth-century Languedoc, Nicole Castan writes, privileged persons were not the sole possessors of honor; in fact, all “respectable” people were solicitous of their honor, which individuals defined variously as a sense of self-esteem, reputation, pride, self-possession, virility, honnêteté, competence, or moral integrity.