CRIMINAL WOMAN. 219 



treats of the women of primitive nations and compares them with 

 those of civilized peojiles. The study is minute, subtle, and val- 

 uable. Nor does Lombroso hesitate even to make comparisons 

 with female animals. This attitude, which might be called a want 

 of respect, Lombroso explains in his preface, saying : " Those who, 

 writing about women, are not content with the close logic of 

 facts, but continue or rather counterfeit the traditions of the mid- 

 dle ages and use chivalry toward the gentle sex, will think that 

 we have often been wanting in respect to them in our work. But 

 if we have not respected our most cherished preconceived ideas, 

 such as the idea of the ' reo nato ' (born criminal), neither have we 

 been afraid of the apparent contradictions which to ordinary eyes 

 might have seemed deleterious to our work. How could we be- 

 come followers of a conventional and unscientific untruth, which 

 only acquired shape in order to lose it directly ? " 



And truly science can not feed on rhetoric, and Lombroso^s 

 books are not those of a poet or novelist, but those of a scientific 

 man, who believes in his work and who devotes himself seriously 

 to its exigencies, no matter whither its necessary conclusions 

 land him. In his study on criminal woman he brings before us 

 women in every condition of life ; he makes a minute study of 

 their good qualities and of their defects, analyzing both, and only 

 speaking when he can draw conclusions from what he has ob- 

 served and studied. Hence his work is a powerful contribution 

 to that affirmation of modern theories on crime which are destined 

 to change entirely the theories of penal law which have ruled up 

 to the present time. 



The first portion of Lombroso's work is divided into chapters 

 which treat of the females of the zoological world ; of the anatomy 

 and biology of women ; of the senses and mind of women ; of their 

 cruelty, pity, and maternity; of their love, ethics, , vanity, and 

 intelligence. These chapters are so many monographs and pre- 

 sent normal woman from every point of view. She is described 

 as always inferior to man, because hey faculties are less developed. 

 Strange to say, according to Lombroso, she has less feeling than 

 man. This seems a direct contradiction of all legends and tradi- 

 tions. And is it not woman, rather than man, who is the most 

 ardent opponent to all useless suffering ; is it not women who have 

 been the chief promoters of anti-cruelty societies, no matter if 

 this cruelty be practiced on human beings or on animals ? But 

 the contradiction is explained, according to Lombroso, by the 

 greater excitability of women and their lesser inhibition. As 

 soon as the primitive barbarities of sexual selection began to be 

 mitigated, men chose as wives the prettiest and gentlest instead 

 of the strongest women, so paying tribute to beauty and the 

 moral qualities that are associated with it. Thus women were 



