To Punish and Protect: Communal Responses to Infanticide in the Early Venezuelan Republic, 1830s–1860s.

Following independence (1830), there was a surge of court cases regarding infanticide in the Venezuelan province of Mérida. The defendants in all these cases were the mothers of the deceased; all were poor, illiterate, single women. Civilians initiated all of these cases, by informing the authorities that they had found a cadaver, helping to identify the mother, and then providing witness testimony. Though the judicial system dramatically increased prosecution of this crime, officials typically arranged to acquit the defendant even when there was abundant evidence that she was guilty. This article investigates the responses by the civilian community to the infant and mother, and finds that civilian responses were diverse and inconsistent. Responses varied: sometimes families or neighbors denounced the mother to the authorities and then assisted the prosecution, sometimes they denounced her but then endeavored to ensure her acquittal, and sometimes they shielded her from arrest and prosecution. Typically, community members did not themselves punish the mother but rather relied on the judicial system to provide justice. The only instances in which community members threatened or hurt the mother were cases in which the mother's parents punished her for harming the family's honor or cases in which the mother attempted to identify publicly the father of the child. These varied responses arose from a mix of honor culture, religion, family ties, sympathy for the mother's plight, and a sense that the pursuit of justice required mercy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]