The Shame and Fame of ‘Half-Hangit Maggie’: Attitudes to the Child Murderer in Early Modern Scotland

Abstract

In a variation upon the previous chapter, where the shaming rituals described were community-based, this chapter relates to the more state-sanctioned forms of opprobrium that operated in relation to formally recognised crimes. More specifically, this chapter is centred around an intriguing and famous infanticide case from early eighteenth century Scotland, involving a woman called Margaret (or as she was better known Maggie) Dickson. This particular example and the reactions to it, can tell us much about how crimes committed by women (such as infanticide) were regarded not only by the general public, but also by the legal and moral authorities of the day. In the Scottish context at least, there appears to have been a clear distinction (or ideological clash) between the opinions of these two social interest groups with regard to the ‘degree’ of shame and humiliation that should and could be afforded a female felon. Consequently, given the concerns of our particular study in this volume, the seemingly conflicting experience of shame and repentance north of the Tweed is important to our investigation. Moreover this example suggests to us how shame could live beyond the strict confines of a regulated and understood primitive culture and how it was, even in the eighteenth century, a response capable of being fashioned and reshaped to suit the different purposes of protagonist, authority and onlooker.