Rape, Acquittal and Culpability in Popular Crime Reports in England, c.1670-c.1750

Datos Bibliográficos

ID22752155
AutoresGarthine Walker (0000-0002-4093-8592, Cardiff University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen220
Número1
Páginas115-142
Fecha de publicación2013-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPast & Present (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-2746 • E-ISSN: 1477-464X
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/pastj/gts063
OpenAlexW2145164897
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8

Studies of rape between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries invariably note that most rape trials end in acquittal. Since the 1970s, when feminist activism and criticism put rape on the political, social and academic agenda, the explanation for this apparently transhistorical phenomenon has been related to misogyny or, at least, a patriarchal sexual double standard. Rape seemed to have a long, unchanging history in which rape law, the criminal justice system, the attitudes of legal officials, and widely accepted ideas about male and female behaviour all mitigated men’s sexual violence and brushed aside or punished the women whom they abused.1 Over the years, historians have refined their explanations largely, and with good reason, within this framework. Much research has focused on the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, characterized as a time when legal, procedural and cultural changes crystallized modern attitudes towards rape.2 Research on the period before 1750 has similarly emphasized low conviction rates.3 In early modern England, these were in the region of one guilty verdict in every eight or ten trials, which in turn were a small proportion of initial accusations.4 Historians have explained this pattern of judicial outcomes in various ways. Yet they have paid relatively little attention to the meanings that early modern people attributed to acquittals, which are the focus of this article.

Acquittal · Conviction · Criminal justice · Criminology · Criticism · Culpability · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law