Analysis of the English Charivari - Assignment Example

Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Take Home Exam SECTION B 2. “In past societies and communities, what was considered to be a crime was more complex than simply what behaviours were declared to be illegal by the state. Discuss this claim with reference to the readings from the course.” In the past communities and societies, what was considered to be a crime was very complex than simply behaviours considered illegal by the state. The practice of whitecapping charivari in the ancient societies in Europe and North America illustrate this fact. Charivaris and white-capping are two prominent types of extra-legal authority within North America that have not been covered adequately by scholars owing to little interest but they demonstrate crucial dimensions that of the 19th Century (Palmer, 1978). One of the persistent cultural forms that familiar to scholars of popular traditions and customs was the charivari. This is a ritualized mechanism applied in community control tracing its roots to the medieval epoch and was prevalent across the Atlantic world. This custom could target any social offender; it was mostly applied in exposing to the collective wrath of the entire community adulterous relationships, unwed mothers, wife and husband beaters, cuckolded husbands, and partners in unnatural marriage. Variations existed and the custom had a rural and an urban presence, but was generally cut from the same cloth (Stone, 1979Demonstrations were initiated under the cover of darkness outside the house of the defender where a party gathering beat drums and pans, blow the ubiquitous horn, and shoot muskets, with butchers hired for the moment. Sometimes the guilty person was taken and roughly put on a donkey facing backwards; he was then taken across the streets informing passers-by his or her transgression. The party was often led by youths or sometimes women (Boritch & Hagan, 1987). As a persistent check on misbehaviour, the charivari acted different purposes in various communities and different cultural contexts. Its demise usually around 1850 is attributed to the rise of nuclear family that no longer needed the collective surveillance of townsfolk or neighbours to assure its continuity and stability. The English charivari was administered under various names: tin panning, kittling, or rough music, or skimmington. In France wife-beaters were hardly subjected to charivari. The custom was very common and usually triggered by the youth, resentful of the old men who often married young women denying them rightful access to young females in the society. Payment was demanded to appease those individuals who saw themselves wronged by unnatural act marriage. In certain circumstances widowers or widows were charivaried following a public concern for the dead spouse (Stone, 1979). The concern was founded on religious sentiment. Marital mismatches being a common cause of French charivaris were only rivaled by sexual offences. Married men who were responsible for impregnating single women, unwed mothers, cuckolded husbands, and those engaging in adulterous acts were indiscriminately subjected to charivari and censured for posing a threat to social order in the community. In the period before Carnavals au bois charivari was applied by young villagers to sanction married people in illicit liaisons. The guilty party was first serenaded by the youth using every kind of musical instruments. Pubic unmasking followed where there was a Carnival procession having effigies of the victims (Romney 1995). Following the singing of songs specially composed and broadcasting the occasion for about four days, the final judgment came comprising of a mock trial where lawyers, judges, and attendants were present wearing different costumes. The event was terminated by the symbolic execution of the offenders and their effigies hung in the public square or simply burnt. The French situation shows graphically that the capacity of charivari as a political force went against the constituted authority. In the early date the custom could be triggered to political purpose publicly; a whereby petty merchants, proprietors, and artisans marshalled the urban poor to express their critique of the state and king. Charivari got political importance in the rise of revolutionary action of the 1790s and in the political climate of 1824-1848 that was turbulent (Palmer, 1978). Charivaris are the best form of class action in the pre-political era. The Limoges prostitutes in 1857 faced incessant harassment and hence incarceration in hospital. After the escape from the institution the women ignored efforts to curb their business activities through organizing charivaris that got overwhelming support from the local barracks. Charivari was seldom an isolated custom. Not by nation or religion, it was a phenomenon practiced universally as an important component of the limited identities and invisible cultures. Charivari was exported to North America by the French and was originally common in the settlements found in Lower Canada, Alabama and Louisiana, and was eventually adopted in areas with English-speaking people. The first instance of North American Charivari recorded happened in Lower Canada. A common pattern is depicted in a Quebec charivari that occurred on 28 June 1683. Francois Laverdure passed away on 7th June 1683 leaving behind a widow who was 25 years old. After three weeks his mourning spouse took another new husband aged 30, Claude Bourget (Palmer, 1978). Three weeks of widowhood appeared to be unreasonably short time for the residents of Quebec, and the resorted to charivari. Disorder persisted for about a week, and eventually the church authority intervened. The church Bishop of Quebec, Monseigneur Francois issued restraining orders against charivari. The church relied on the Secular Arm to suppress these gatherings. This early charivari posed challenges of order and disorder that state and church would contend with throughout the 18th and 19th centuries (Stone, 1979). The influence of the French in North American charivari in 19th century continued to be felt. Within Upper Canada the ritual was considered to a French institution. In Upper Canada in the 19th Century charivari was often a force that undermined social authority, opposed by the police and magistrate. Three charivaris in Upper Canada in the md 1830s all staged against remarriage attracted the wrath of authorities leading to two arrests, another forced the calling into force the Summary Punishment Act, and the other leading to formation of a special force of constables to enforce peace (Romney 1995). Charivaris were used to show disapproval for particular forms of behaviour judged as illicit or immoral. White-caps were mysterious organizations in Indiana who took upon themselves to render justice to perceived offenders of the law. They went out at night in disguise, seized their victim and bind him to a tree then administer terrible whipping (Palmer, 1978). They were severe against wife-beaters. They were not known and no one dared to make a complaint. Whitecapping developed from the tradition of vigilante activity in North America. The form of community regulation of sexual behaviour and family standards is similar to English charivari. Whitecaps did not have the instruments of rough music and traditional mock processions as depicted in the English charivari. SECTION C 1. Concerns about morality and social change in Canadian society in shaping laws and law enforcement in the later 19th and early 20th centuries Canadian society Concerns of morality and social change have had a significant role to play in shaping laws and law enforcement in the 19th and early 20th century. The society sense of morality helped in the development of the initial institutions of justice that developed into the modern system of justice in Canada. The perception of what is right and wrong in the society shaped the classification of laws and institutions of justice. Consequently morale played a key role in shaping laws and development of laws in the 19th and early 20th century. Whereas there were serious offences to address like homicide and rape, authorities started to get concerned with mundane matters such as drunkenness and vagrancy. Although homicide was a serious offense, it was rare. More troubling was the challenge of controlling a strong working class basing on the temptations that city life provided (Boritch, 1992). Consequently police and youth courts developed with the aim of controlling the upsurge in juvenile underclass. The notion that mayhem and murder are modern phenomenon is erroneous. Records show that homicides were both qualitatively and quantitatively different in and around Halifax port as compared to other areas of the colony. A strong marine and military presence in Halifax meant a continuous emigration of the youth, unattached men who did not have any true social bonds to the community (Allison & Jim, 2001). Both civilians and soldiers could be victims, but the offenders turned out to be military men. In the course of this period there were two cases in which civilians attacked and killed military men. The civilians were pardoned in both cases on the ground that they had acted in self-defense. There about seventeen documented homicides in the outside area of Halifax involving victims who knew their attackers-either neighbours or kin (Allison & Jim, 2001). The history of Canadian society change shows the perception of the public towards the women and how the law developed to discriminate the women. Findings demonstrate a general pattern of more severe dispositions for female offenders. There is reasonable variability in the effect of gender across different measures in severity of sanction, various offence and offender attributes, and for the late 19th and the early 20th century. Criminal law reflects the societal prejudice against women who are single especially when they faced unwanted pregnancies. Condemned to servitude and poverty, this women infanticide j many occasions appeared to be best option although was still unenviable (Boritch & Hagan, 1987). Infanticide was barbaric but surprisingly the prevalent characteristic of day to day life in Canada in the 19th century. It was tragic but historically unavoidable avenue of dealing with unwanted pregnancies. There were modern types of contraceptives and many women in the 19th century targeted to limit the number of children using other means like abstaining, prolonged nursing, coitus interruption, and abortion where everything had failed (Romney, 1995). The law was against such reproductive control. As the century went by, criminal law against abortion was first enacted in 1810 in Brunswick. It expanded across the country to prevent pregnancy artificial termination regardless of the state of gestation. In 1892 the government prohibited the sale, advertising and distribution of all forms of contraceptives. Infanticide became a means of last resort for many. Bodies of newborns were stumbled upon in various places like stove pipes, ditches, privies, buried in snow, hollow trees, in wells, and under floorboards. Giving birth to a child who was illegitimate resulted in disgrace, employment termination, and sharply diminished the prospects of getting a job for a single parent (Boritch, 1992). Harsh social and economic realities left almost no options for these women. Most tried out concealment plans with extraordinary determination. They had to keep usual appearances before acquaintances and employers in spite of pregnancy-related illnesses, hiding their growing bum with layers of clothing and various excuses (Smandych & Linden, 1996). They had to have some form of privacy in which to deliver unattended and do away with the newborn child unobserved. They then resumed their daily routines as if nothing happened. Those who were found out before executing their plans were swept into the criminal justice system. Amazingly, defendants were treated understandably as compared 100 years earlier, proof of murder was not important in such cases. There is a participatory process that parents especially mothers especially mother played in the moral, social, and sexual control of recalcitrant daughters (Romney, 1995). Whereas many cases emanated from the working class, the active role played by the parents in the process shows that this was not a mere passive acceptance of the influence of state in the less privileged lives. The family courts played an important role as an extra-familial place where conflicts were resolved. Maternal guidance institutionalization was common in prisons for women. Rehabilitation translated to enhancing chastity prior to marriage and advancing domesticity later. This was attained by the hiring practice of prisons for women. The social change and practices have been entranced in the Canadian justice system in many cases. Female officers were hired to attain the overall goal of enhancing maternal, nurturing intuition in women prisoners (Boritch, 1992). The process of examining people immigrating to British Columbia developed from a poorly organized system that permitted many unfit immigrants into the country who ended up being placed in asylums, to an integrated medicalized screening process targeting to block immigrants who were unsuitable within their home ports. This era was labeled the deportation ‘golden age’. Class control within Toronto developed to a form of policing which is today the crime-control system. Women who were married were incapable legally to contract, sue, or being sued in their own names. Women were permitted to carry on business independently from their spouses if they had written consent from their husbands. All personal property of the wife were transferred completely to the husband including the wages (Boritch, 1992). Women in Quebec went through the same legal hurdles upon marriage like other women across Canada. All property was jointly owned after marriage but the husband alone had the right of disposing it. After 1851 laws concerning married women property received incremental reforms within the common law provinces. The social changes in the society have put changes on the primitive laws that oppressed married women and provided more liberty to the modern women. Divorce and annulment can now happen. The perception of morality and social change has played an important role in shaping laws and law enforcement in Canada. References Allison May and Jim Phillips, “Homicide in Nova Scotia, 1749-1815.” Canadian Historical Review 82: 4 (2001). Boritch Helen, “Gender and Criminal Court outcomes: An historical analysis.” Criminology: An interdisciplinary journal 30: 3 (1992). Smandych Russell and Linden Rick, ‘Administering Justice without a state: A study of the private justice system of Hudson’s Bay Company to 1800’ Canadian Journal of Law and Society. 11: 1 (1996). Romney Paul, “Upper Canada (Ontario): The administration of justice, 1784-1850.” Manitoba Law Journal 23 (1995). Helen Boritch and John Hagan, “Crime and changing forms of class control: Policing public order in Toronto the Good.” Social Forces 66: 2 (1987). Bryan Palmer, “Discordant Music: Charivaris and Whitecapping in Nineteenth-Century North America.” Labour 3 (1978). Stone Thomas, “The Mounties as Vigilantes: Perceptions of Community and the transformation of law in the Yukon, 1885-1897.” Law & Society Review 14: 1 (1979). Read More