London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

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.