Fous, prodigues et faibles d'esprit

Records of civil judicial procedures, interdiction and judicial adviser, throw a new light on three categories of deviant conducts dealt with by justice courts in the nineteenth-century : madness, weakness of intellect and prodigality. The definitions given by jurists to these « affections » allow the historian to perceive the scope of « abnormal » conducts susceptible to be punished by a loss of civil rights. However, recourse to civil justice constituted just one possibility for regulating deviant behavior. But in this particular kind of response the leading actor was the family. In addition, relatives were adopting different strategies, before or beside the transfer of the conflict to the judicial sphere, in order to cope with a troublesome individual. The state and local administration were more active at the institutional level and in the incarceration of too problematic individuals (usually mentally ill persons of a dangerous character). The whole analysis contributes to a better understanding of the respective functions of family, justice and the state in the social regulation of several forms of deviant behavior in the nineteenth-century

Administration of justice · Criminology · Economic Justice · Interdiction · Political science · Sociology · Tribunal · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Medieval and Early Modern Justice