London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

Marriage, when fully consummated, is not indissoluble. Divorce may be pronounced by the public tribunals of justice. First, for adultery on the part of the husband or of the wife; second, on the condemnation of one or the other, on account of a felonious crime, to loss of honour and liberty for ten years; thirdly, in cases of insanity; fourthly, for desertion, neglect, or the continued absence, without intelligence, of husband or wife. When a married person complains of having been abandoned, the magistrate fixes a certain interval during which the other may make answer; a notice is inserted in the gazette and the newspapers. If, at the expiration of this period, no reply is heard, the divorce is pronounced. The length of absence necessary to justify such a separation is left to the discretion of the judge. Fifthly, when one person is palmed off for another; sixthly, for ill-treatment; seventhly, for apostasy; eighthly, for incurable epilepsy. After the sentence of the civil tribunal, the divorce is held good in an ecclesiastical court.

A man is bound to support his natural children, and inquiries in cases of affiliation are frequent. When a girl accuses a man before a public tribunal, of being the father of her child, he may deny it upon oath, when her allegation is dismissed, unless she can prove by witnesses, or by any other evidence, that her claim is absolutely just. As such a proof is difficult to obtain, there are abundance of false oaths made at Stockholm. A girl sometimes accuses a peasant of being the parent of her child, demanding, perhaps, a sum of money equal to a sovereign of our coinage, by way of compensation. The man refuses to pay it, and offers to swear that he is not the child’s father. The magistrate then seeks by persuasion to induce him to confess the truth; but he persists in his refusal until the woman modifies her claim. He continues all the while to threaten her with the oath of repudiation, unless she is contented with his offer. If she accepts a miserable trifle, he acknowledges the debt; if not, he perjures himself, and the law allows him to escape, though morally convinced, beyond all question, of his profligacy and falsehood.

The illegitimate child has no claim on the property of its father, or even on that of its mother; but if the parents marry, however short a time before the child’s birth, it is saved from the stigma of bastardy. A legitimate child cannot be disinherited by its parents, unless for marrying against their consent, or being condemned for felony to a heavy and disgraceful punishment.

Death is the penalty attached to infanticide, but is almost invariably commuted to detention for a longer or shorter period, with hard labour in prison. In 1832 the House of Correction for females in Stockholm, which served for all Sweden, contained 290 women, of which 45 were condemned to hard labour for life; of these, 30 had murdered their children.

The punishments denounced against adultery endeavour to mark a distinction between particular degrees of the crime. Incest and bestiality are, however, punished only with a moderate fine. When a married man indulges in guilty intercourse with a married woman, they both suffer death by decapitation. When it is committed by a married man with a girl betrothed and pregnant by her lover, he receives 120 blows with a stick, and she 90 lashes with a whip. Punishments of this sort continually take place in a public square at Stockholm. At present, in whipping the girls on their naked persons, care is taken to protect their bosoms and their abdomens with plates of copper. Formerly, however, when this precaution was not adopted, the lash frequently lacerated the bosom and tore open the flesh, so as to expose the bowels. When adultery is committed by a married man with an affianced girl, or the reverse, a simple fine is exacted; in default of which, imprisonment on bread and water, or a public flogging, is inflicted. When one of the criminals only is married, and the other is entirely free, an inferior money penalty is adjudged.

An unmarried woman becoming a mother pays to the church penance money, to a certain amount. So also does every man: that is to say, the law enacts it; but it is, perhaps, needless to add that the priests get, in this respect, much less than is legally their due.

In 1836 prostitution was forbidden by law throughout Sweden. The public woman, being convicted, was imprisoned in a house of correction, until she had time to reclaim herself, and some one was willing to take her into service. The same, indeed, was done to any poor woman, whatever her character, who could not describe her occupation. Many little girls, some not more than eleven years old, were confined as a punishment for being without a regular avocation. Professional and open prostitution being thus severally prohibited by the law, there were, at that period, no regular brothels in Sweden; but the women of the lower orders were so corrupt, that prostitution was as common as possible. “Every servant girl,” says the advocate Angelot, who wrote in 1836, “may be considered as a public prostitute, and every house of public entertainment may be described as a brothel.”

So far the laws describe the manners of Sweden; that is, they indicate the profligacy they are unable to cure. The country is, perhaps, one of the most demoralized in Europe. During many years it continued to decline in population, prosperity, and character; and if during the last quarter of a century it has improved in these respects, it is because the old system of institutions is gradually wearing away.

Superficial travellers, who gather their ideas of other countries by no other light than that of the chandelier, and in no other society than that of fops and flirts, describe Sweden as a paradise of good breeding and elegance. Society is there often gay and lively, which satisfies the inquiries of such tourists. The ladies of that nation also possess many fascinations, with an apparent frankness and sincerity, which never fail to please. The women of the humbler orders wear, in the streets, the airs of modesty, and never shock the eye by exhibitions of wantonness or indecency. The intercourse of the sexes is extremely free; and therefore there are fewer signs of intrigue, because this is not necessary; but to infer from such circumstances that Sweden is a moral country, is to fall into a grievous error.

Sweden is immoral, and Stockholm is the most immoral place in Sweden. For many years it absolutely decayed under the moral disease which afflicted it. In 1830 it contained nearly 81,000 inhabitants; this number decreased in a year or two to 77,000, and the deaths during a period of ten years exceeded the births by an average of 895. Yet it is in a healthy situation; the people are well lodged; everything, indeed, is there to render it pure and salubrious; but the moral atmosphere is tainted by a continual epidemic of depravity.