by Nomad
The remarkable story of Margaret Dickson illustrates how church and state often worked hand in hand to create untold suffering for women, especially when it came to reproductive issues. Fortunately for all us, we live in a much more enlightened age.
Infanticide in the Age of Reason
When it comes to matters sexual or reproductive, women have throughout history, usually been society's victims. Such is the case of one Scottish peasant named Margaret Dickson.
In order to tell properly her following horrific story, we have to explore the historical background a little.
Before the Age of Reason really got a foothold, one notorious social problem was infanticide- the murder of a child within a year of birth. This type of crime was, as one historian put it, "woefully common." As a crime, it has long been considered the most contrary to human nature since the love of a helpless baby would, on the surface, appear to be ingrained in our maternal instincts and our universal sense of self-preservative.
What kind of pressure could induce any woman to commit such a heinous crime?
Yale history professor Keith Wrightson sheds a bit of light on the subject:
While it was certainly not a generally tolerated practice, infanticide would appear to have had a considerable currency in the disposal of a minority of unwanted, predominately illegitimate children.
It was unsurprisingly both a capital crime by the state and an unpardonable sin by the Church. And yet, many historians theorize that it was a fairly common practice at that time.
