Criminal Psychology by Hans Gross (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

The same is true in purely individual cases. In the eyes of woman the same crime committed by one man is black as hell; committed by another, it is in all respects excusable. All that is necessary for this attitude is the play of sympathies and antipathies generated from whatever source. Just as the woman reader of romances favors one hero and hates another, so the woman witness behaves toward her figures. And it may happen that she finds one of them to have murdered with such “exciting excellence,” and the victim to have been “such a boresome Philistine,” that she excuses the crime. Caution is here the most necessary thing. Of course women are not alone in taking such attitudes, but they are never so clear, so typical, nor so determined as when taken by women.

Avenarius tells of an English couple who were speaking about angels’ wings. It was the man’s opinion that this angelic possession was doubtful, the woman’s that it could not be. Many a woman witness has reminded me of this story, and I have been able to explain by use of it many an event. Woman says, “that must be” when she knows of no reason; “that must be” when her own arguments bore her; “that must be” when she is confused; when she does not understand the evidence of her opponent, and particularly when she desires something. Unfortunately, she hides this attitude under many words, and one often wishes for the simple assertion of the English woman, “that must be.” In consequence, when we want to learn their ratio sciendi from women, we get into difficulties. They offer us a collection of frequently astonishing and important things, but when we ask for the source of this collection we get “that must be,” in variations, from a shrug of the shoulders to a flood of words. The inexperienced judge may be deceived by the positiveness of such expressions and believe that such certainty must be based on something which the witness can not utter through lack of skill. If, now, the judge is going to help the “unaided” witness with “of course you mean because,” or “perhaps because,” etc., the witness, if she is not a fool, will say “yes.” Thus we get apparently well-founded assertions which are really founded on nothing more than “that must be.”

Cases dealing with divisions, distinctions and analysis rarely contain ungrounded assertions by women. Women are well able to analyse and explain data, and what one is capable of and understands, one succeeds in justifying. Their difficulty is in synthetic work, in progressive movement, and there they simply assert. The few observations of this characteristic confirm this statement. For example, Lafitte says that at medical examinations women are unable to do anything which requires synthetic power. Women’s judgments of men further confirm this position, for they are said to be more impressed with a minimal success, than with a most magnificent effort. Now there is no injustice, no superficiality in this observation; its object is simply parallel to their incapacity for synthesis. Inasmuch as they are able to follow particular things they will understand a single success, but the growth of efficiency toward the future requires composition and wide horizon, hence they can not understand it. Hence, also, the curious contradictions in women’s statements as suspicion rises and falls. A woman, who to-day knows of a hundred reasons for the guilt of some much-compromised prisoner, tries to turn everything the other way when she later learns that the prisoner has succeeded in producing some apparent alibi. So again, if the prosecution seems to be successful, the women witnesses for the defence often become the most dangerous for the defenders.

But here, also, women find a limit, perhaps because like all weaklings they are afraid to draw the ultimate conclusions. As Leroux says in “De l’Humanité,” “If criminals were left to women they would kill them all in the first burst of anger, and if one waited until this burst had subsided they would release them all.” The killing points to the easy excitability, the passionateness, and the instinctive sense of justice in women which demands immediate revenge for evil deeds. The liberation points to the fact that women are afraid of every energetic deduction of ultimate consequences, i.e., they have no knowledge of real justice. “Men look for reasons, women judge by love; women can love and hate, but they can not be just without loving, nor can they ever learn to value justice.” So says Schiller, and how frequently do we not hear the woman’s question whether the accused’s fate is going to depend on her evidence. If we say yes, there is as a rule a restriction of testimony, a titillation and twisting of consequences, and this circumstance must always be remembered. If you want to get truth from a woman you must know the proper time to begin, and what is more important, when to stop. As the old proverb says, and it is one to take to heart: “Women are wise when they act unconsciously; fools when they reflect.”

It is a familiar fact that women, committing crimes, go to extremes. It may be correct to adduce, as modern writers do, the weakness of feminine intelligence to social conditions, and it may, perhaps, be for this reason that the future of woman lies in changing the feminine milieu. But also with regard to environment she is an extremist. The most pious woman, as Richelieu says, will not hesitate to kill a troublesome witness. The most complicated crimes are characteristically planned by women, and are frequently swelled with a number of absolutely purposeless criminal deeds.

In this circumstance we sometimes find the explanation for an otherwise unintelligible crime which, perhaps, indicates also, that the first crime was committed by woman. It is as if she has in turpitude a certain pleasure to which she abandons herself as soon as she has passed the limit in her first crime.

This little matter is intended only for very young and inexperienced criminal justices. There is nothing more exciting or instructive than a quarrel with clever and trained women concerning worthy subjects; but this does not happen in court, and ninety per cent. of our woman witnesses are not to be quarrelled with. There are two occasions on which a quarrel may arise. The first, when we are trying to show a denying prisoner that her crime has already been proved and that her denials are silly, and the second, when we are trying to show a witness that she must know something although she refuses to know it, or when we want to show her the incorrectness of her conclusion, or when we want to lead her to a point where her testimony can have further value. Now a verbal quarrel will hurt the case. This is a matter of ancient experience, for whoever quarrels with women is, as Börne says, in the condition of a man who must unceasingly polish lights.[269]

Women have an obstinacy, and it is no easy matter to be passive against it. But in the interest of justice, the part of the wise is not to lose any time by making an exhibition of himself through verbal quarrels with women witnesses. The judge may be thoroughly convinced that his success with the woman may help the case, but such success is very rare, and when he thinks he has it, it is only apparent and momentary, or is merely naïve self-deception. For women do like, for the sake of a momentary advantage, to please men and to appear convinced, but the judge for whom a woman does this is in a state that requires consideration.

A few more particulars concerning feminine intelligence. They are, however, only indirectly connected with it, and are as unintelligible as the fact that left-handedness is more frequent and color-blindness less frequent among women than among men. If, however, we are to explain feminine intelligence at all we must do so by conceiving that women’s intellectual functioning stops at a definite point and can not pass beyond it.

Consider their attitude toward money. However distasteful Mammon may be in himself, money is so important a factor in life itself that it is not unintelligibly spoken of as the “majesty of cold cash.” But to make incorrect use of an important thing is to be unintelligent. Whoever wastes money is not intelligent enough to understand what important pleasures he may provide for himself, and whoever hoards it does not know its proper use. Now single women are either hoarders or wasters; they rarely take the middle way and assume the prudence of the housewife, which generally develops into miserliness. This is best observable in the foolish bargaining of women at markets, in their supposing that they have done great things by having reduced the price of their purchase a few cents. Every dealer confirms the fact that the first price he quotes a woman is increased in order to give her a chance to bargain. But she does not bargain down to the proper price, she bargains down to a sum above the proper price, and she frequently buys unnecessary, or inferior things, simply because the dealer was smart enough to captivate her by allowing reductions. This is indicated in a certain criminal case,[270] in which the huckster-woman asserted that she immediately suspected a customer of passing counterfeit coins because she did not bargain.

Now this tendency to hoard is not essentially miserliness, for the chief purpose of miserliness is to bring together and to own money; to enjoy merely the look of it. This tendency is an unintelligent attitude toward money, a failure to judge its value and properties. Now this failure is one of the principal reasons for numerous crimes. A woman needing money for her thousand several objects, demands it from her husband, and the latter has to provide it without her asking whether he honestly can or not. A wife is said to be uncurious only with regard to the source of her husband’s money. She knows his income, she knows the necessary annual expenses; she can immediately count up the fact that the two are equal—but she calmly asks for more.

Of course, I am not referring to the courageous helpmeet who stands by her husband in bearing the burdens of life. With her the criminalist has nothing to do. I mean only those light-headed, pleasure-loving women, who nowadays make the great majority, and that army of “lovers,” who have cost the country a countless number of not unworthy men. The love of women is the key to many a crime, even murder, theft, swindling, and treachery. First, there is the woman’s unintelligible arithmetic, then her ceaseless requirements, finally the man’s surrender to the limit of his powers; then fresh demands, a long period of opposition, then surrender, and finally one unlawful action. From that it is only a step to a great crime. This is the simple theme of the countless variations that are played in the criminal court. There are proverbs enough to show how thoroughly the public understands this connection between love and money.[271]

An apparently insignificant feminine quality which is connected with her intelligence is her notorious, “never quite ready.” The criminalist meets this when he is looking for an explanation of the failure of some probably extraordinarily intelligent plan of crime. Or when a crime occurs which might have been prevented by a step at the right minute, women are always ten minutes behind the time. But these minutes would not be gained if things were begun ten minutes earlier, and once a woman suffers real damage through tardiness, she resolves to be ten minutes ahead of