THE RELATIONS OF SEX TO CRIME. 731 



mind. Through all Nature may be found analogies which give prob- 

 ability to this. Nature, in her forms of fixity and. power, is massive 

 and. rugged in her outlines ; it is only in her phases of changing, 

 transient life, that she assumes lines of beauty, delicacy of shape, and 

 clothes her proportions in the subtile harmonies of color. I do not 

 deny woman firmness of character; but surely, whatever firmness she 

 possesses, it is not by reason of her emotions that it exists. Nor do I 

 wish to be understood as saying that any excess of emotion woman 

 may possess over man is necessarily the cause of inhei-ent weakness of 

 character; but, the idea I intend to convey is, that excessive develop- 

 ment of the emotions affords a way of approach to the firmer charac- 

 teristics of her mind of those exciting causes of crime, which, without 

 these avenues, must act with less force as criminal factors. The evi- 

 dence of this lies in the tendency of woman to exceed in a marked 

 manner her ratio to crimes in general against the person when ex- 

 posed to the action of causes which act more or less directly upon her 

 emotional life. Women perpetrate crimes, involving human life, more 

 frequently within the circle of their domestic relations than men (Que- 

 telet). In view of this fact, let us inquire as to the probable motives 

 which cause women to exceed men in crimes against persons within 

 this restricted area. If we were to explain it as the result simply of 

 the great opportunity women have of perpetrating crime in the family, 

 it leads to the conclusion that women's criminal tendencies exceed 

 those of men under favorable opportunities, and which men in the 

 same relation possess to an equal extent. This we know is a wrong 

 conclusion ; therefore, while we must allow the great facilities afforded 

 to women a certain value as a factor in this excess, yet it is not ade- 

 quate to explain the fact. It is in the family that woman finds a field 

 for the free action of her emotional life. It is as an outcome from these 

 emotions that the family exists ; it is througli these emotions that the 

 most deadly wounds may be inflicted upon her morality and self- 

 respect. In the majority of cases, if through her error, or that 

 of others, the family is a failure, the woman of the family is a failure 

 also. In this can be found the strongest argument for encouraging 

 woman to become expert in some form of labor, so as to enlarge the 

 field of her self-dependence, that she may be able to secure safety for 

 herself in the trying hour of domestic misfortune. While the family is 

 called into existence by reason of the most potent sexual mental traits, 

 and finds its strength and permanency in a temperate use and even 

 balance of the emotions, it may become the source of the most active 

 criminal impulses. Conjugal incontinence, jealousy, a misplaced love, 

 may create the most deadly strife in the family circle. Es|3ecially is 

 this true if the criminal tendency exists latent, as an inherited taint, 

 in the members of the family, and ready to be kindled into life by 

 emotions which, in others, free from inherited vice, would not pass 

 beyond the control of the moral faculties. Man, whose activities are 



