Roaming Men, Sedentary Women? The Gendering of Vagrancy Offenses in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Abstract

For centuries, vagrancy was considered a major hotbed of crime. Roaming beggars and vagabonds, many observers believed, were to a large extent responsible for offenses such as theft and arson. As historical research on the early modern period has shown, females constituted a significant proportion of the vagrant population, and according to crime statistics, this was still true up until the middle of the nineteenth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the image changed quite radically: While convictions of men for begging and vagabondage increased, the female share dropped away toward zero. How can this shift in gender ratios be explained? Does it reflect changing attitudes on the part of the criminal justice system or on the part of potential offenders? This paper argues that both sides have to be taken into account. The first section outlines how begging and vagabondage were defined by nineteenth-century law and takes a closer look at the evidence given by statistical records. The second section discusses possible reasons behind the conspicuous vanishing of female beggars and vagabonds, focusing on the backdrop of evolving welfare provisions and migration patterns. The final section sums up the findings and comes back to the question of what vagrancy has do to with crime in general. The assumption that begging and vagabondage inevitably led to more serious transgressions had largely become a myth by the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, these petty offenses played an important role in shaping gender identities in relation to societal norms.