‘A Shocking State of Domestic Unhappiness’: Male Victims of Female Violence and the Courts in Late Nineteenth Century Stafford

Jo Turner

doi:10.3390/soc9020040

Abstract

Instances where men were the victims of female violence in the past are very difficult to explore, especially when the violence took place in a domestic setting. There is now a notable body of work on violence in the nineteenth century but none that looks specifically at male victims of violence where there was a female perpetrator, and their treatment by the courts. This article goes some way in filling that gap by using data collected in researching female offenders at the end of the nineteenth century in Stafford. It argues that, as with violence where there was a female victim and female perpetrator, the courts and the press were similarly unconcerned and somewhat dismissive of female violence towards men in a domestic setting, thus being unsympathetic towards male victims of female violence.

Highlights

Instances where men were the victims of female violence in the past are very difficult to explore, especially when the violence took place in a domestic setting
Drawing on data relating to all events for which women were brought as defendants before the Stafford Borough Petty Sessions, including those subsequently committed to the Quarter Sessions and Assizes, from 1 January 1880 to 31 December 1905 [13], this article discusses cases of violence where there was an adult male victim and a female perpetrator in Stafford, a mid-sized market town and the county town of Staffordshire, during the last two decades of the nineteenth century and examines how the courts viewed and dealt with such cases
It is difficult to arrive at an accurate figure, similar is roughly true of the late nineteenth century as the majority of female violence cases that came to court involved a male perpetrator and female victim [26,27]

Summary

Introduction

Instances where men were the victims of female violence in the past are very difficult to explore, especially when the violence took place in a domestic setting. Thomas Coulson never appeared before Stafford magistrates accused of assaulting Eliza, or for any other offence involving violence towards anyone else.

Results

Conclusion