Infantacide, Sexual Assault and Abduction in 18th Century Ireland
What do the Phenomena of infanticide, abduction and sexual assault reveal about the patriarchal order that obtained in eighteenth-century Ireland?
This essay as the title suggests aims to deal with the phenomenon of infanticide, abduction and sexual assault in Eighteenth century Ireland. Each will be dealt with in their own right and this essay will also set out to discuss what these phenomena revealed about the patriarchal order that obtained in eighteenth-century Ireland. In the case of Infanticide, women were often forced to come to this desperate conclusion due to the way an illegitimate child would affect their lives. Not only would id destroy all chances of a woman engaging in an advantageous marriage but it would also risk the young woman being thrown out of her lodgings, losing her job, (if she had one) and raising a child that would be discriminated against from birth. She would be entirely marginalized and disregarded for the rest of her life. In most cases, the woman had little or no support from the male involved, particularly if the baby was conceived by way of sexual assault. Infanticide was always deemed a woman’s crime but one wonders is this as a direct correlation to the fact that most men involved simply didn’t want to know. We see in these cases that again men held the reigns and although were equally involved in the conception bore none of the stigma or blame. Secondly this essay will continue to discuss the evidence of a patriarchal society through sexual assault. Assault at the time was a common issue in which women were taken from streets, places of work or any other outlet and raped or sexually assaulted by one or a group of males. The woman although through no fault of her own, was in many cases deemed unfit for a favourable union and so limited in her options later in life. The price of a husband was a dowry and the maidens virginity. Without one a woman held little hope of securing a husband of their status or above. Some women even
This essay as the title suggests aims to deal with the phenomenon of infanticide, abduction and sexual assault in Eighteenth century Ireland. Each will be dealt with in their own right and this essay will also set out to discuss what these phenomena revealed about the patriarchal order that obtained in eighteenth-century Ireland. In the case of Infanticide, women were often forced to come to this desperate conclusion due to the way an illegitimate child would affect their lives. Not only would id destroy all chances of a woman engaging in an advantageous marriage but it would also risk the young woman being thrown out of her lodgings, losing her job, (if she had one) and raising a child that would be discriminated against from birth. She would be entirely marginalized and disregarded for the rest of her life. In most cases, the woman had little or no support from the male involved, particularly if the baby was conceived by way of sexual assault. Infanticide was always deemed a woman’s crime but one wonders is this as a direct correlation to the fact that most men involved simply didn’t want to know. We see in these cases that again men held the reigns and although were equally involved in the conception bore none of the stigma or blame. Secondly this essay will continue to discuss the evidence of a patriarchal society through sexual assault. Assault at the time was a common issue in which women were taken from streets, places of work or any other outlet and raped or sexually assaulted by one or a group of males. The woman although through no fault of her own, was in many cases deemed unfit for a favourable union and so limited in her options later in life. The price of a husband was a dowry and the maidens virginity. Without one a woman held little hope of securing a husband of their status or above. Some women even
Bibliography: Harrison, Alan, Ross Campbell, Ian and Carpenter, Andrew, Eighteenth Century Ireland (Dublin 1995) Kelly, James, Irish Economic and Social History (Dublin 1991) McCurtain Margaret and O’Dowd Mary, Women in Early Modern Ireland (Edinborough 1990) Walsh, Edward John, Rakes and Ruffians: The underworld of Georgian Dublin (Dublin 1979) Counell, K.H, Irish peasant society (Dublin 1996) -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. James Kelly, ‘A Most inhuman and barbarous piece of villainy’: An exploration of the crime of rape in Eighteenth Century Ireland in Alan Harrison, Ian Campbell Ross and Andrew Carpenter, Eighteenth Century Ireland (Dublin 1995), p 78 [ 2 ]