Thou Savage Woman

When a husband killed his wife he was charged with committing murder, and if found guilty he was hanged. When a wife killed her husband she was charged with petty treason, a crime that was analogous with high treason, and if found guilty she was burned at the stake. Unlike murder, petty treason was indefensible and there could be no plea for manslaughter or self-defence. This distinction in law between between husbands and wives held that women were wholly subjugated to their husband's rule, and as subjects they were expected to be loyal, naturally non-violent, submissive and, above all, obedient.Within the domestic sphere men were kings, and women who turned against their masters were fearfully labelled as home rebels and house traitors. The deadly subversion of domestic order by women was a subject of great cultural fascination in early modern society, and while men committed the majority of domestic homicides it was the narratives of female killers that dominated true crime street literature.Thou Savage Womantells the stories of women whose crimes violently shattered the narrow confines of their gendered subservience, and whose notoriety revealed a society that was at once repulsed by and attracted to tales of murderous female rebellion.