The Language of Violence: Symbolic Body Parts in Marital Conflicts in Early Modern France

Abstract

In Early Modern Europe, physical violence was a ubiquitous part of sociability and, as such, culturally coded to an extremely high degree.¹ In this context, recent studies have repeatedly emphasized the importance of gender as one of the principal factors that determined acts of violence and their perception.² Most research, though, presents physical violence as a quasi exclusively male phenomenon, in particular when analysing violence as a means of establishing and maintaining the gender hierarchy. Even the few studies that explicitly address the question of female violence generally conclude that Early Modern Europe’s culture of violence was a male culture, in which women participated, if at all, only marginally.³ The same is true for most of the studies that, due to the growing interest concerning domestic violence, deal with the question of intra-marital violence. For example, Nicole Castan for Early Modern France, Laura Gowing for England and Heinrich Richard Schmidt for Switzerland focus above all on male violence towards women.⁴ Elizabeth Foyster’s recent study on marital violence in England from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, despite claiming to present a “balanced view” of both male and female violence, nevertheless addresses physical violence mainly as male violence endured by women. Female violence is mainly described as “verbal violence”, whereas physical violence by women is hardly addressed at all and simply appears as “violent response”, or “resistance”, to male violence.⁵

See for example Muchembled, Robert, La violence au village. (XVe–XVIIe siècle), Turnhout 1989; Crouzet, Denis, Les guerriers de Dieu. La violence au temps des troubles de religion (vers 1525 – vers 1610), Paris 1990, 2 vol.; Ruff, Julius Ralph, Violence in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge 2001; Greenshields, Malcolm, An economy of violence in early modern France. Crime and justice in the Haute-Auvergne, 1587–1664, University Park 1994; and the articles in Lindenberger, Thomas; Lüdkte, Alf, (eds.), Physische Gewalt. Studien zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, Frankfurt a.M. 1995; Eriksson, Magnus; Krug-Richter, Barbara (eds.), Streitkulturen. Gewalt, Konflikt und Kommunikation in der ländlichen Gesellschaft (16.–19. Jahrhundert), Cologne 2003.

Barahona, Renato, Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain : Vizcaya 1528–1735, Toronto, 2003; Hohkamp, Michaela, “Macht, Herrschaft und Geschlecht : Ein Plädoyer zur Erforschung von Gewaltverhältnissen in der Frühen Neuzeit”, L’Homme 7/2 (1996, special edition, Gewalt’), pp. 8–17; Hufton, Olwen, “Women and violence in early modern Europe”, in: Dieteren, Fia; Kloek, Els (eds.), Writing Women into History, Amsterdam 1990, pp. 75–95; Jütte, Robert, “Geschlechtsspezifische Kriminalität im Späten Mittelalter und der Frühen Neuzeit”, Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung 108 (1991), pp. 86–116; Spierenburg, Pieter, “How violent were women? Court cases in Amsterdam, 1650–1810” Crime, Histoire & Sociétés 1, 1 (1997):9–28; Spierenburg, Pieter (ed.), Men and violence, Columbus 1998.

See for example the articles in Spierenburg, Pieter (ed.); “How violent were women? Court cases in Amsterdam, 1650–1810” Crime, Histoire & Sociétés l, 1(1997): 9–28; Men and violence (see note 2); see also Daniels, Christine; Kennedy, Michael V. (eds.), Over the Threshold. Intimate Violence in Early America, New York 1999; Greenshields, Malcolm, “Women, violence, and criminal justice records in early modern Haute Auvergne (1587–1664)”, Canadian Journal of History 22 (August 1987), pp. 175–194; Hufton (see note 2); Jütte (see note 2); Spierenburg, “How violent were women?” op. cit.

Castan, Nicole, “Puissance conjugale et violence maritale”, Pénélope 6 (1982), pp. 95–103; Gowing, Laura, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London, Oxford 1996, in particular pp. 180–231; Schmidt, Heinrich Richard, “Männergewalt und Staatsgewalt. Früh neuzeitliche Ehekonflikte vor Gericht in vergleichender regionalgeschich tlicher Perspektive”, L’Homme Z.F.G., 14/1 (2003), p. 35–54 ; see also Hohkamp, Michaela, “Häusliche Gewalt. Beispiele aus einer ländlichen Region des mittleren Schwarzwaldes im 18. Jahrhundert”, in: Lindenberger; Lüdtke (eds.) (see note 1,) pp. 276–302.

Foyster, Elizabeth, Marital Violence: An English Family History, 1660–1875, Cambridge 2005, see in particular pp. 38. Physical violence by perpetrated women is mainly discussed in a chapter with the suggestive title “Resisting violence”, and in particular under the headline of “Violent responses”, ibid. 102–115