Of Prostitution in Denmark.
In the laws of Denmark in 1834 the position of the sexes, the regulations of the marriage contracts, and the restrictions on public immorality were sought to be fixed, with every distinction of detail. A man was declared under tutelage until the age of eighteen, and under a modified authority until twenty-five, after which he attained independence in all the acts of his life as a citizen. The woman was declared to remain under tutelage all her life. Even the widow must place herself under a guardian, without whose consent she can do nothing; but this person she may choose herself. She may place herself under the direction of one or many, and even distribute authority among them, but is never allowed to assert an independent existence.
To contract marriage a man must be at least twenty years old, and the woman not under sixteen. The system of legal and binding betrothments was abandoned in 1799; but previous to that period the ceremony of affiancing the bridegroom to the bride was important and almost as absolute as the last ceremony itself.
To contract a legal marriage, it is essential that both persons shall be free from the ties of any other legal engagements. Persons who are related to each other in an ascending or descending line are prohibited from marrying. Brother and sister, says the code, may not marry; but brother-in-law and sister-in-law, uncle and niece, may. A man who desires to marry his mother’s or father’s sister must obtain a special permission from the government.
It is necessary before marriage to procure the consent of the parents or guardians of both parties; but if they refuse, their refusal may be complained of, and the judge, reproving them, may order the union to take place in spite of their opposition. At twenty-five years of age the man is released from this authority.
According to an ordonnance passed in 1734, promises of marriage may be written or verbal; a promise of marriage by written agreement must bear the handwriting, seal, and signature of him who makes it. It must be certified by two witnesses, respectable men, before there is any communication between the man and the woman. The verbal promise must also be spoken aloud in the presence of two respectable men, before any intercourse is allowed. Such engagements are binding, and the man who breaks one may be prosecuted at law.
There are, however, certain descriptions of persons whom the law does not allow to invoke the faith of such promises. Widows, who desire to act against their guardians’ consent, and women of bad reputation, are in this manner excluded. A servant cannot plead a promise of marriage against her master, her master’s son, or any person dwelling in the same house. A man may also repudiate, by a formal oath, the accusation of a pregnant woman who pretends he has promised her marriage, and that he is the father of the child she bears in her womb, unless she can prove her allegation by sufficient testimony.
Divorce is permitted, and may be pronounced immediately when legal cause is proved against one or other of a married pair. It may be demanded in the case of simple abandonment during seven years, or malicious intentional desertion for three years, in the case of condemnation to perpetual hard labour, of impotence existing previously to marriage, of the venereal disease contracted previously to marriage, of insanity supervening upon marriage, and of adultery. Divorce may also take place, without any judgment from the public tribunal, when both parties equally desire it.
In this case, after the married persons have declared their intention, they must be entirely separated in bed and at table during three years; when, if they persevere in their desires, the separation is legally complete. If, however, at the expiration of that period, one of them refuse to abide by the agreement, the administrative college may order it to be fulfilled, notwithstanding all such opposition. Lastly, the king may always allow a divorce to take place, for any or no cause, according to his royal pleasure.
Inquiries into the maternity or paternity of children are permitted. If a girl accuses a man of having been the father of an infant to her, he can only rebut the charge by taking a solemn oath that he had intercourse with her at the period presumed to be the date of her conception. She may then prove, if she can, by any means whatever, that he is swearing falsely; but such evidence being difficult to complete, so as to produce legal conviction, many individuals escape the burden which justly attaches to them.
He who acknowledges or is proved the father of a natural child is bound, until it attains its tenth year, to maintain it according to his rank in life. Should he refuse to pay what he has promised, he may be imprisoned on bread and water. Every twenty-four hours thus spent acquit him of about half-a-crown of his liability.
Illegitimate children have no claim upon the inheritance of their father’s property; but to that of their mother, or even of their mother’s parents, they are absolutely entitled. A natural child may be adopted or legitimatized by subsequent marriage, in which case it loses all the disability which attached to its former condition. In 1831 the proportion of illegitimate children in Denmark was one in nine and three-fifths. In Copenhagen, however, the frightful proportion was exhibited of one to three and a half.
The law adjudges to the child killer death without mercy. She is decapitated, and her head fixed upon a spike. The woman who does not take proper precautions before the delivery of her offspring is accounted guilty of infanticide should the infant die.
Notwithstanding the severity of the law infanticide is a very common crime in Denmark, although it contains foundling hospitals, at least in Copenhagen. Angelot saw in one of the prisons of that city a man, who, after having flung his four children into the water, went immediately before a magistrate, declaring that he could not provide them with sustenance, and had consequently thought it better to send them to God. Another of these murderers was a woman, who had cut the throats of two of her children, and was engaged in attempting to kill the third, when she was arrested. Superstition and misery, combined with the looseness of morals in the capital of Denmark, were the chief causes of these fearful crimes against nature. The criminals are condemned to the death we have mentioned, but their sentence is usually commuted to imprisonment for life in a house of correction.
The punishment denounced against unnatural crimes was formerly that of burning alive; but it is now softened to that of perpetual exile or forced labour.
The husband may be prosecuted for adultery, as well as the wife, and it is an offence which, says the code, may be punished by law; but authority seldom interferes. The ancient Danes visited the crime with death, and that at a period when murderers were only condemned to pay a fine. At present the penalty is fixed, for the first offence, at confiscation of a tenth part of the guilty person’s property; for the second, banishment. For the third repetition of the crime the adulterer may be tied up in a sack and drowned. The law, however, has now become obsolete through long disuse.
Women may take to public prostitution if they receive permission from the authorities. They are not troubled afterwards unless they offend against peace or decency, or bear more children than may legally be born. The code declares that any unmarried woman who becomes the mother of two children may be prosecuted, fined, and committed to prison. Custom, however, in this, as in many other instances, is more considerate than the law, and no woman is troubled who has not born three children by three different men; even then a permission of a special character is necessary before the prosecution can be carried on. No doubt these restrictions encourage women to procure abortion, or destroy their offspring when born. Prostitutes are very numerous, and the vexatious restraints upon marriage appear to produce much immorality. In Copenhagen, however, the corruption of society cannot be altogether, or even chiefly, traced to that cause; for the manners of the city are, in a general sense, profligate.
The appearance of the women belonging to the lower classes in Copenhagen, as in Stockholm, is remarkably modest and unpresuming. Neat and tasteful in their costume, they preserve in their own homes a freshness and a comfort which indicate that they enjoy a position of some honour; for where women are not well treated, they never have a pride in keeping their clothes, habitations, or persons clean and elegant.
It seems that the condition as well as the morality of the sex has improved since the laws of the country have become more polished by civilization. The code we have described belonged to a period several years back. Since then a new constitution has been established; the nation has become more free; the penal laws, especially, have been very considerably modified; the relations of the sexes have lost some of the rudeness which characterized them before; and though civilization still remains at a low ebb, public manners have certainly undergone great improvement.
The prostitutes of Copenhagen live, some in a kind of hotel, where they take part in mixed entertainments, to which the dissolute persons of the city congregate; some in a sort of boarding-houses; others in private dwellings of their own; or they lodge in small rooms, and go with their companions to houses where temporary accommodation may be had at various charges. Their numbers would appear to be considerable; and their habits do not differ in any peculiar manner from those of the same class in other cities of the Continent, which afford materials for a more complete description[89].