Defendant women in the 19th century hinterlands

the case of Maria Paulina’s abortion

Abstract

This work, from a historical and criminal perspective, proposals to analyze how 19th-century hinterlands women were inserted in the judiciary as perpetrators of crimes. For now, the case of the defendant Maria Raquel da Conceição, who was accused of causing abortion in Maria Paulina in 1897, is taken as a starting point. The present study proposals to read and analyze this criminal process in its quantitative and qualitative aspects. From this, it becomes possible, when subjectively analyzing the criminal process, not only to study the case under analysis but also to outline a general panorama. To this end, criminal proceedings in the backlands of Paraíba, Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte, between the years 1839 and 1889, will be used as the main source - with an express focus on the Summary of Crime by defendant Maria Raquel da Conceição, from 1897. As a result, we perceive a judiciary that was intended to be increasingly scientific. The defendant, socially vulnerable, is then presumed guilty, but the procedural rules of the time limit her conviction. It is then perceived the position of a woman defendant in a judiciary made by men.