732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



less confined within the area of domestic life, is more able than woman 

 to resist the action of the emotions. Another cause, whicli compara- 

 tively releases man from the criminal tendencies which grow out of a 

 violated emotional life, is the weaker hold these emotions have upon 

 his conscious life. These are my reasons for concluding that this ex- 

 cess over men, as a criminal against persons, within these limits, is the 

 result of the more active development of the emotions in women. 



Considering that, in the purely sexual relations of men and women, 

 the male is the active and the female the passive one, the ratio between 

 the sexes for the crime of adultery offers additional confirmation of 

 the foregoing. For this purpose I shall select the statistics of M. de 

 Marsangy, than whom none can be selected more favorably disposed 

 to women. This author places the ratio for men at 528, and women at 

 472 to 1,000.* As these were cases which came under the notice of 

 the public prosecutor, it is reasonable to suppose that the circum- 

 stances attending them were in both sexes of a flagrant character, so 

 that possibly the usual attitude of the sexes toward each other in this 

 ofiense was reversed. These ratios render the assumption safe tliat 

 it is in crimes which grow out of the acute and excessive emotional 

 life of women that they tend to equal men as criminals. If it were 

 any tendency to crime, growing out of sexual mental traits possessed 

 more equally in common than the emotions, which causes tlie tendency 

 to equality above referred to, it would be reasonable to expect to find 

 the sexes occasionally approaching a common ratio in crimes against 

 property, and which could be traced to the same mental traits. But 

 a careful survey of the field shows this not to be so. Woman's deli- 

 cacy and keenness of emotional life, when their undue exercise or 

 unbalanced projDortions seek expression in the criminal act, lead to 

 crimes against persons, not against property. Even incendiarism, so 

 commonly practised by men from motives of revenge, is but seldom 

 attempted by women. The enmities of women are never general. 

 They are roused by particular persons and special acts ; hence their 

 revenge takes- an individual direction, not against the property, but 

 against the person of the enemy. The wounding of parents, and 

 parricide, exceeding by so large a ratio all other acts of violence 

 against the person, I believe can be explained in no other way. Ad- 

 mitting, as I have already done, that the great opportunity afforded of 

 making attempts upon the persons of parents has some value as a fac- 

 tor, yet we must bear in mind that, from the nature of their domestic 

 life, women have opportunities equally as great of inflicting injury 

 upon others. It follows that opportunity as it affects parents must be 

 given exceptional v^alue, in order to account for their being the objects 

 of criminal attempts on the part of daughters, over that cf other 

 persons holding a domestic relation. The ratio of crimes against par- 

 ents also makes it very probable tnat tiie purely sexual emotions are 



' Isc. d(., table, p. 14*7. 



