A Shared Social History and Social Anthropology of Societal Reaction to The ‘Different’: Women, Perverts, Children, Cripples, Madmen, Idiots, Criminals, Wasters, Foreigners, Dissenters, Paupers, Elders, and Other Deviants *

Introduction *

A Note on the Problems of Amateur Historians and Secondary Sources *

A Note on Focus and Bias of this Section *

Human History and Difference, an Overview *

Introductory Comments *

A General Note on the Inter-changeability of These Categories *

Gender and Sexuality *

Children *

Introduction *

Why Children or Potential Children May Be Hated *

Abortion *

Child Sacrifice *

Abuse (Physical, Mental and Sexual) of Children *

Physical and Mental Abuse *

Child Sexual Abuse *

Infanticide *

Reasons Why Abortion, Abuse and Killing of Children is Under-reported *

Historic Methods of Child-rearing Proposed by deMause *

Bodily Functional Difference *

Mental Difference- Mental Disorder *

Mental Difference- Mental Impairment *

Belief Difference *

Forensic Difference *

Social Difference *

Ethnic Difference *

Financial Difference *

The Aged *

A Shared Social History and Social Anthropology of Societal Reaction to The ‘Different’: Women, Perverts, Children, Cripples, Madmen, Idiots, Criminals, Wasters, Foreigners, Dissenters, Paupers, Elders, and Other Deviants

Introduction

As is clear from the sections above, I intend to treat all of these ‘negative difference states’ as socially constructed entities. This does not deny the individual experiences of the primary actors, nor the reactions of people affected by them. ‘Mad’ people may suffer much mental torment, ‘Feeble-minded’ people may be aware of this as a deficit and may have distinct impairment of ability to cope with the technological demands of their society, ‘thugs’ may or may not accept their criminality, and their victims may still suffer. Despite all this, there is no clear positivist taxonomy of Criminality, Disability or any other social difference. Any useful definitions are socially constructed.

This social construction is apparent from the history of all of these social categories of people- in reviewing the history, we will see how people in different ages have been within or without these categories depending upon the whims of their time; we will also see how people of different cultures are viewed as within or without these categories dependent upon the views of their culture.

The History, Sociology and Social Anthropology of each of these groups have great similarities. Most publications seem to concentrate on particular sections or eras and this leads to a sense of difference between the groups. I believe that if the histories and anthropologies of all the groups are looked at in unison, then the regularities and similarities will reinforce the fact that we are merely dealing with social reaction to difference, rather than to individual constructs. Difference is the primary cause for societal reaction; categorisation of that difference is a Secondary Cause.

It is important to realise that the essential methods of determining these statuses are twofold:

Behaviour: behavioural analysis shows what the person does- whether their ‘acts’ are deemed socially acceptable- what they DO.

Appearance: how the people appear to the rest of society- what they SEEM to be.

It is not then surprising that similar fates have met persons who fall into any of the categories.

Additionally, people who fall just outside these social constructs- the social misfit, the person with moderate physical imperfection, the slow learner and the psychologically strange will be at risk of similar but diluted treatment.

These are socially constructed difference categories and I will use the following subheadings:

Gender and Sexuality

Children

Bodily Functional Difference

Mental Difference

Mental Disorder (‘Mental Illness’- ‘Madness’)

Mental Impairment (‘Psychological Developmental Impairment- ‘Feeble-mindedness’)

Forensic Difference

Social Difference

Ethnic Difference

Financial Difference

The Aged

I will take an historical and cross-culture approach to the subject, dividing the presentation first by era and then by culture. Availability of source material currently ensures that there is a modern ‘Western World’ bias to much of this topic- limited material is available for modern times from outside the Western World. I will attempt to find further sources for this lack of coverage.

The dating system used is biased towards conventional eras in Western History.

The information available is currently slanted toward the Western tradition.

There is not a consistent amount of information for each age and culture. Some areas are particularly rich in evidence, others have none. The quality of sources varies greatly from era to era and culture to culture.

Some sources will have intended or unconscious biases about what is recorded or how it is interpreted.

A Note on the Problems of Amateur Historians and Secondary Sources

I am not a historian, and consequently these notes are ‘Third-hand’ history- I have gathered most of the information from secondary sources. These secondary sources sometimes quote primary sources, but these are most often in translation. This limits the validity of this study, but similar criticism could also be made of other works attempting similar tasks. Most historians or anthropologists would choose to concentrate on a containable subject in terms of culture and age. In looking at the facts of negative treatment over all ages and all cultures, it becomes necessary to use a more anecdotal approach.

A Note on Focus and Bias of this Section

There are two main aims of this section;

1/ the collection of any information about the treatment of people with ‘negative difference states’ in any era and at any time

2/ an attempt to collect information about how our current view of ‘negative difference states’ has developed within our culture and its history.

The first aim will ensure that there is a considerable amount of information which will be minimally placed within a cultural context- isolated quotes from strange times and cultures.

The second aim will ensure a bias towards those cultures that have affected my own (English Millennial Culture). Consequently there will be an emphasis on a strand of history that starts with Mesopotamia and Egypt and flows through Judaic, Greek and Roman cultures, Teutonic lands, Anglo-Saxons, Normans and then the ‘English’. Similarly, cultural influence at later eras will be mainly from within the English speaking world- it is a reality that we are more affected by practice in nineteenth century America than that in twentieth century France or China- language matters.

To summarise, all information about any culture or time may be a useful illustration of the human approach to negative difference; information from cultures and times that have affected our own will give additional explanatory power over treatment of negative difference in England in the year 2000.

Human History and Difference, an Overview

Introductory Comments

‘The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there’. Methods of doing and thinking change over time, as do values and expectations. However, many common themes will be apparent and much of our current mode of thought and understanding will be based on beliefs of these earlier societies.

Garland notes that:

‘Attitudes towards the deformed and disabled reflect a particular social reality, notwithstanding the fact that the basic human responses to those exhibiting extreme physical abnormalities, such as fascination, contempt, loathing, pity and dread are probably universal. I plain language, different cultures react differently to different anomalies and with differing degrees of emotional intensity, even though no culture will ignore them altogether.’

It is possible that we will find similarities in the beliefs about and societal reaction towards various negatively valued groups.

Winzer discusses historical societal differences from current belief and practices in her Chapter titled Disability and Society Before the Eighteenth Century: Dread and Despair. She notes:

‘Plague, disease, and malnutrition desolated the ranks of the great as well as a common. Women faced the continual peril of childbirth; until well into the 19th century, most females were perpetually in a state of pregnancy. Women spent their adult life, in addition to their other duties, in bearing, rearing and, all too often, burying their children. The male population was periodically decimated by war, at home or abroad. Besides the miseries of almost constant war, early societies suffered the incursion of great hordes of raiders, political and social chaos, and the dreadful affliction of inescapable, mysterious, and deadly diseases. People suffered not only from the evil effects of diseases now vanished such as smallpox and typhus but also from the results of unsophisticated medical treatment and ubiquitous dental decay.'

'... until fairly recently in recorded history, children were not even considered legally to be persons: they had no rights and were usually considered the property of their parents.'

' in pre-modern Western societies infant mortality was high. Even in the mid 18th century less than half the children born were expected to reach adulthood. Those who did survive infancy had little to look forward to. There were no special nurseries, and no play grounds, certainly no special toys.... For most children, growing up was a haphazard experience, and among poorer classes even very young children were expected to contribute economically to the family.'

' In such a social setting, where general hardship was the norm and dependent persons, children included, were not viewed as problems for social solution, the status of exceptional children and adults was radically different from what is today. In the thousands of years of human existence before 1800, life for most exceptional people appears to have been a series of unmitigated hardships. The great majority of disabled persons had no occupation, no source of income, limited social interaction, and little religious comfort. Conspicuously abnormal persons were surrounded by superstition, and myth, and fatalism - especially fatalism. Their lives were severely limited by widely held beliefs and superstition that justified the pervasive prejudice and callous treatment. Individual seen as different were destroyed, exorcised, ignored, exiled, exploited - or set apart because some were even considered divine .’

The above description should be borne in mind when considering the treatment delivered to deviant people in ancient times. One should always be aware of the level of treatment due the god-fearing, honest, able person- their expectations may have been very low unless they were of high birth; even those of high birth would have had lower expectations than we might take for granted for an average person today.

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A General Note on the Inter-changeability of These Categories

There will be much overlap between these categories. According to which culture and which era, social difference will be treated under different categories. Assignation to one category may lead to automatic membership of another category.

The issue of gender and sexuality has been discussed above and is well defined for ‘male/femaleness’ except in minor cases of gender uncertainty and dysphoria. However, there will be cross-over into the forensic and mental disorder categories for certain expressions of difference in sexuality and gender (e.g. treatment of homosexuality and cross dressing). Trans-gender differences (gender dysphoria) may be treated as a physical medicine interest or a mental disorder interest or a forensic interest or merely a social interest. Additionally, female gender has historically inclined to Financial Difference.

Childhood is not a well constructed social category. The age of starting and ending the role of child has varied throughout history. Romans believed childhood ended at 7, Saxon and Norman Britain believed it ended at about 12, Jewish tradition at 13, modern belief varies from as low as 7 (reference recent calls for delinquents of this age to be treated as adult criminals) up to 21 (purchase of alcohol in USA).

Bodily Functional Difference will in some eras include people who we would now categorise as Mentally Impaired and vice versa- historically the deaf/dumb were treated as identical to the ‘feeble-minded’.

Much of the material on people who are now seen as Mentally Impaired (Learning Disabled or Retarded) will appear under the category of Mental Disorder in earlier ages. Additionally, because both these categories are social construction of the same entity- mental difference, there will be great difficulty in differentiating these categories in any age or culture.

Being Mentally Disordered or Mentally Impaired may lead to Poverty or Criminality and be treated historically under that category. Assignation from ‘excusable’ mental difference to criminal culpability may have been the only possible reaction to extremes of behaviour.

Financial difference is affected by all of the other categories, and in turn affects the outcome of all other categories: To be a rich woman, rich child, rich cripple, rich madman, rich idiot, rich criminal, rich misfit, rich foreigner or rich old person will often mitigate most of the negative effects of the other roles. Conversely, poverty often multiplies them.

The category of ‘Aged’ will be subsumed within Physical Impairment or Pauper state at different times.

This introductory section will vary in complexity of explanation for each of the categories. There is little need to go into detail over the conditions covered by ‘Bodily Functional Difference’ which have a well documented analysis easily available. However, special pleading will be necessary for ‘Children’ as a category of people open to severe negative sanction. ‘Gender and Sexuality’, ‘Forensic Difference’, ‘Social Difference’, ‘Financial Difference’ and ‘The Aged’ will require some additional pleading to be included alongside other more accepted differences. The special status of ‘Mental Difference’ – Disorder and Impairment – Madness and Feeble-minded – requires additional analysis and introduction because of their shared complex history.

Gender and Sexuality

The major content of this section will be the perennial problem of generally lesser life chances being offered to women, throughout history often to the point of regular early death.

It is likely that many societies may claim that they venerate women and femininity, but we will need to examine the reality of their life chances.

Investigation of the treatment and roles offered to persons of borderline gender definition will also indicate the societal view of sexual differentiation.

The societal reaction, legal and extra-legal, to homosexuality will also be of interest.

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that a widely prevalent attitude in antiquity was that:

‘…a woman or child was the property of a man and therefore to be used as he saw fit. Thus, marriages were contracted for very young children, solely for political, commercial, or property value of such unions.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘Rape was common in the unbridled days of the past, especially during wartime. It is depicted in the Bible as well as in Greek and Roman history, and it played a prominent part in the drama of historic violence.’

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Children

Introduction

The contents of this section are important in themselves as an indication of how children may be treated as a venerated and despised social group. The treatment of children has a great effect on other categories, particularly on the Mentally Impaired- those we would now call Learning Disabled. This is particularly so for Infanticide. If children in general can be seen to have been treated as disposable, then impaired children are likely to have been seen as even more disposable.

Because Infanticide is such an emotive subject, we might expect to find that the recording of its history might be patchy and incomplete.

There is a myth that childhood and parenting has always been a valued and positive experience; the historical evidence is more equivocal.

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘Child maltreatment is not a new phenomenon. It has existed since the beginning of recorded history. It lives by our inattention. Our current concept of what constitutes child maltreatment is a result of redefining and relabeling. It stems from a change in our consciousness and from awareness of previously accepted child-rearing practices that are now considered unacceptable by the majority of society and are often illegal.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘From ancient times through the nineteenth century, there was no safe mode of artificial feeding, so children of the affluent (and most children form other families who could afford it) were fed by a wet nurse for the first two or three years of life. Wet nurses were often carelessly chosen, and the foster care they provided was often fraught with danger. The risks to children included being starved, overlaid (suffocated), neglected, or physically abused. Some wet nurses were known as ‘angel makers’; they not only allowed or helped their charges to die, but sometimes even collected multiple insurance claims on each death. Illegitimate children were particularly at risk when placed in foster care, perhaps because there was little supervision.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘Infants were commonly swaddled, often placed on a board and always tightly wrapped, to restrict movement for at least the first few months of life, a practice not conducive to health or robust development. … Infants do sleep a great deal, and caring for them was no doubt much more ‘convenient’ when the child could be carried and set down much like a parcel.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘To soothe a fretting infant or young child, nurses or parents often resorted to genital manipulation. Playing with a child sexually was not unusual then and was sometimes considered an amusement for both.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘Historically, sexual offenses against children were common and child sexual exploitation has been present from the earliest recorded writings. … The widespread prevalence of sexual abuse throughout history contrasts markedly with the ostensible abhorrence of such practices by society. … Sexual abuse of children in antiquity was not addressed very openly, since taking liberties with a child was often considered merely casual use of an unimportant object rather than a threat to the more important sexual institution of marriage.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that a widely prevalent attitude in antiquity was that:

‘…a woman or child was the property of a man and therefore to be used as he saw fit. Thus, marriages were contracted for very young children, solely for political, commercial, or property value of such unions.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘Neither was it always a disgrace to hire out girls for sexual use; the child was a marketable commodity. Daughters and sons were sometimes sent out into the streets as prostitutes; the money they earned was used to supply or augment family income.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘Sexual abuse of children by nonfamily members has occurred form the past to the present with few if any societal sanctions.’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘At a very early period, Athens and Rome had orphan homes…’

ten Bensel, Rheinberger and Radbill note that:

‘Foster care was also mentioned in antiquity. Removal to private homes often subjected children to maltreatment and neglect, but it did give them a sporting chance of survival

A review of the history of abortion will provide an indication of how valued parent status has been throughout history and throughout cultures.

Abortion is another emotive subject and again its history is likely to be patchy and incomplete.

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Lloyd deMause in The Evolution of Childhood uses a psycho-analytical approach to the subject of childhood. Whilst not entirely concurring with his approach or findings, his historical data are useful. He details various negative practices recorded about childhood through the ages and his findings will be summarised below.

Why Children or Potential Children May Be Hated

Mythology of childhood holds that all children are gifts, beautiful, desired, and the focus of their parents’ attention. It assumes that there is a ‘norm’ that children will be highly valued and the recipients of positive projections. This is not necessarily the case.

Claims are made that there is a natural biological drive to protect young. However, this is difficult to justify from the scientific record.

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Further claims are made that normal humans will always act positively towards their children. The historical record does not necessarily substantiate this.

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deMause: points out that children may be demonised and as an aside gives a justification for ancient and modern swaddling practices as a method of controlling children as potential evil-doers.

deMause points out that negative feelings may be projected onto children and that this leads to control.

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deMause notes:

‘Joseph Rheingold ‘found that [death wishes of mothers] are not only far more widespread than is commonly realized, but also that they spring from a powerful attempt to "undo" motherhood in order to escape the punishment they imagine their own mothers will wreak upon them’

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deMause suggests that that mothers often have death wishes towards their children.

Bakan recognises that abortion is closely related to infanticide. He notes that there is a taboo about talking of or recording either action.

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Abortion

Perhaps the modern rise in abortion numbers is balanced by the reduction in effective levels of infanticide. As technology of abortion improved, need for infanticide decreased.

Abortion as Women’s history and thus occult or otherwise unrecorded.

Methods of abortion through history.

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Child Sacrifice

Bakan points out that child sacrifice started in ancient times and has continued in different forms until close to the present day.

Abuse (Physical, Mental and Sexual) of Children

Physical and Mental Abuse

David Bakan’s book Slaughter of the Innocents tries to place child abuse into a rationalist and Darwinist framework as an understandable, unconscious effort towards population control. Whilst not agreeing with his underlying thesis, much of the information on child abuse that he has gathered is very valuable and will be reproduced here.

Bakan writing in 1971 noted the increased awareness of gross child abuse as this taboo subject emerged once again from the shadows.

Bakan gives recent (1971) examples of child abuse in the USA which are quite shocking in their severity. A search of newspaper articles on child-abuse in Britain over the past three decades would produce similar heart-wrenching details.

Bakan discusses the possibility that unconscious impulses of violence towards children may be more widespread than conventionally believed. There is an argument that it is a normative experience to feel great anger as well as great love towards children.

Bakan references a valuable 1931 paper by Zilboorg which shows that many parents who suffer depressive reactions express intense hostile feelings towards children and Zilboorg suggests that this feeling may be normative and repressed.

On sexual abuse of children there is a line of argument that the strong feelings (positive or negative) about children may be sublimated into sexual feelings towards them. This theory holds that such feelings are felt to be so unacceptable that they are massively repressed and often result in reaction formation- explaining the social reaction to paedophiles and other abusers.

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Child Sexual Abuse

Prins notes that child sexual abuse is well documented throughout history and has been probably much more common than is currently believed. There is an argument that children have been treated as sexual objects throughout history and that there has been much suppression and repression of such feelingss

Prins notes that there are controversial arguments for legal normalisation of sexual relationships with children.

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Infanticide

ten Bensel et al note that in early times children had no right to live. Their survival depended on the father’s whims, and their formal acceptance into personhood.

Tooley takes much of his information from EA Westermark, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas

Tooley notes:

‘To what extent has infanticide been practised in other societies? What were their attitudes toward it? If the attitudes and practices of other societies were substantially different from what was prevalent in our own society, how are such differences best explained?’

Tooley notes that infanticide has been commonplace and unremarkable in many less technologically developed cultures and ages.

Tooley notes that infanticide has been commonplace also in more advanced societies.

ADD.

Tooley notes:

‘Plato, in The Republic … advocates the destruction not only of defective children, but also those who are the product of inferior parents, or of individuals past the ideal child-bearing age (Plato, republic, book 5, 460).’

Tooley notes:

‘…the anthropological evidence indicates that exposure of infants was apparently carried out without any deep sense of regret, and, particularly in the case of weak and deformed children, was thought of as a perfectly natural way of behaving.’

Tooley quotes from Laila Williamson’s article Infanticide: An Anthropological Analysis:

‘Infanticide is a practice present-day westerners regard as a cruel and inhuman custom, resorted to by only a few desperate and primitive people living in harsh environments. We tend to think of it as an exceptional practice, to be found only among such peoples as the Eskimos and Australian Aborigines, who are far removed in both culture and geographical distance from us and our civilized ancestors. The truth is quite different. Infanticide has been practised on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunters and gatherers to high civilizations, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule.’

Tooley quotes Williamson:

‘The killing is made easier by cultural belief that a child is not fully human until accepted as a member of the social group. This acceptance may take place when the child is named, or when it appears strong enough to survive, or when it shows ‘human’ characteristics, such as walking or talking. The time varies from a few days to several years after birth. The Peruvian Amahuaca, for instance, do not consider children fully human until they are about three years old.’

deMause notes:

‘The history of infanticide in the West has yet to be written, and I shall not attempt it here. But enough is already known to establish that, contrary to the usual assumption that it is an Eastern rather than a Western problem, infanticide of both legitimate and illegitimate children was a regular practice of antiquity, that the killing of legitimate children was only slowly reduced during the Middle Ages, and that illegitimate children continued regularly to be killed right up until the nineteenth century.’

There are many reviews of infanticide which seek to show that infanticide was not a norm in the majority of societies; these are covered below. It is possible that there is a dynamic behind these studies to show that such events could not have occurred because such a finding is so repugnant.

Although we are now aware Western society criminalises infanticide and has done so for generations, we know that an effective infanticide by neglect or abuse has been relatively commonplace during recent periods of history.

ADD

Ancient civilizations certainly regularly engaged in infanticide.

A review of legal records from medieval societies would show that legal findings of infanticide were relatively rare and seriously sanctioned. But this does not necessarily show that the prevalence of infanticide was low, only its recording.

Additionally, Bakansuggests that child abuse (especially neglect) may have been an historic method of hidden infanticide. The level of child abuse only became apparent with the advent of X-ray technology and a social acceptance that child abuse could occur.

Bakan suggests that unwanted- especially later- fourth, fifth etc. children were seen as a burden, they may have been abused as a means of disposal without legal interventions.

If mentally impaired children were seen as an economic or social burden, might they also have been abused or neglected to ensure an early death. These actions may have been deeply unconscious to the parents and the child itself may have been blamed as difficult, or as being impossible to meet its needs.

This suggests that official figures on infanticide may grossly understate the actual number of caused child deaths in any society.

Reasons Why Abortion, Abuse and Killing of Children is Under-reported

Bakan points out that throughout history child abuse is under-reported and not socially discussed and that this has played a role in perpetuating it. He points out that it thrives in secrecy.

Bakan gives a psychological explanation for the repression of the subject because of the repugnance of the emotions caused by child abuse.

ADD

Bakan gives an explanation for lack of research and historical recording of the subject, caused by commonplace expressed abhorrence of the subject.

It is arguable that the mere acceptance of the existence of child abuse (sexual or physical) may lead to demonisation of those investigating or accepting it.

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Bakan gives an example of Freud’s consideration of the subject of physical abuse by beating where he noted that fantasies of being beaten as a child were associated with a great deal of shame and guilt.

The ‘fantasy’ element of this may need to be questioned. If beating of children was commonplace in nineteenth century childcare ADDthen this may not be ‘fantasy’ but repressed memories. Similar arguments have been put forward ADD which showed that Freud initially took at face value the statements of his (mainly female) clients who disclosed sexual abuse, but later reinterpreted this as mere fantasy as the acceptance of this as a normal social phenomena in modern society was unacceptable to him and to others. ADD

Bakan notes that the legal system has effectively created a good deal of parental immunity through history, even up to the present day. The example of the girl raped by her father and the father being found not liable was a relatively recent (in 1971) case in the USA ADD

Bakan on the recording of child abuse:

‘A discrepancy exists between the magnitude and significance of child abuse in history and its documentation. Certainly one must hesitate in making assertions about the non-existence of what is not found, for no search is ever so thorough as to preclude the possibility of gross oversight.’

Historic Methods of Child-rearing Proposed by deMause

deMause suggests the following modes of child rearing:

Infanticidal Mode (Antiquity to Fourth Century AD)

Abandoning Mode (Fourth to Thirteenth Century AD)

Ambivalent Mode (Fourteenth to Seventeenth Century)

Intrusive Mode (Eighteenth Century)

Socializing Mode (Nineteenth to Mid-twentieth Century)

Helping Mode (Begins Mid-Twentieth Century)

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Bodily Functional Difference

The preponderance of material on ‘disability’ or ‘impairment’ available refers to bodily functional difference. This is probably so for several reasons, among which are:

‘Diagnosis’ of Feeble-mindedness is a consequence of the culture of a society and its economic needs. The more traditional (‘primitive’) a society is, the less likely it is that the number of mental ‘inadequates’ will be identified- if most people are engaged in basic and simple tasks, then even very basic and very simple people will have roles.

‘Madness’ is culture specific. It is only with the rise of rationality as a totem that unreason without violence or major financial loss became a major social problem. Consequently, there is no absolute standard for madness that is valid over different eras.

That behaviour which might now be seen as Madness or Retardation might previously have been seen as willed and reprehensible behaviour, and thus treated as criminal rather than ‘disability’.

There is considerable historical cross-over between some Bodily Functional Differences and other categories. Deaf/dumb were often treated as ‘Feeble-minded’ as they were seen as incapable of taking part in civic society.

Mental Difference- Mental Disorder

Shorter in A History of Psychiatry says:

‘Before the end of the eighteenth century, there was no such thing as psychiatry. Although individual doctors had occupied themselves with the care of the insane and had written manuals about it since the time of the ancient Greeks, psychiatry did not then exist as a discipline to which a group of physicians devoted themselves with a common sense of identity.’

It should be noted that this is an essentially ‘medical model’ description of psychiatry- if doctors don’t do it, it isn’t psychiatry. History will show that similar functions to modern psychiatry were performed by other individuals, groups and agencies throughout the ages.

Alexander and Selesnick note:

‘The mentally ill have always been with us – to be feared, marveled at, laughed at, pitied, or tortured, but all too seldom cured. … To cope with their ills, man has always needed a science that could penetrate to where the natural sciences cannot probe – into the universe of man’s mind. … This need has been answered in many ways. The effort began with witch doctors in the prehistoric past and has, since those primeval times, been embraced by philosophers, artists, clergymen, scientists, and at last, medical men specially prepared and dedicated to the effort – the psychiatrists.’

Alexander and Selesnick give an excellent description of mental difference based on everyday descriptions that would be recognisable in any age; this description is free of medical assumptions.

Alexander and Selesnick note:

‘Three basic trends in psychiatric thought can be traced back to the earliest times: (1) the attempt to explain diseases of the mind in physical terms, that is, the organic approach; (2) the attempt to find a psychological explanation for mental disturbances; and (3) the attempt to deal with inexplicable events through magic.’

Alexander and Selesnick note:

‘One of the reasons for the delay in the development of a rational psychiatry is that normal behaviour does not awaken the need for scientific explanation. We know our strivings, our hopes. We know what hurts our feelings, what pleases us, and how our aims and feelings determine our behaviour. At least we think we know. Only when human behaviour and feelings become abnormal – for instance, when a person becomes depressed or elated without any obvious reason, when he sees and hears things that do not exist, when he is afraid without being threatened – do we need some special explanation.’

Shorter notes that the outcome for the mad was not always benevolent:

‘One may abandon immediately any romantic notion of the insane in past times as being permitted to gambol on the village green or ruminate idly in the shade of the oak tree. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, the people of villages and small towns had a horror of those who were different, an authoritarian intolerance of behaviour that did not conform to rigidly drawn norms. Living in tightly organized face-to-face communities, the villagers of Europe attached great importance to inherited social roles, to customs pre-ordained by tradition, and to daily lives dictated by the march of the seasons. Those who were forced by disorders of mind and mood to be different, to deviate from any of these rhythms were dealt with in the most brutal and unfeeling manner. … If turned out of their homes and villages, the mentally ill swelled the streams of beggars that wandered the roads of early modern Europe. Many of the ‘village idiots’ were those who had suffered mental retardation or schizophrenia from birth trauma (protracted labor in the days of pelves narrowed by rickets). The ‘fool’ with his staff was a standard iconographic image. Yet the picture of the insane as always having been with us requires nuancing. Outside of England, most people with mental disorders in past times had the right to be taken in and given poor relief in the place where they were born. They could not be simply turned out.’

However, as we shall see, this is a particularly negative view and assumes all people who today receive ‘help’ from the medical profession would then (in whichever past) have been one of a stigmatised group. Many people who are today’s dependants, would have been, in a simpler society, members of the ordinary downtrodden workers- treated badly, but the same as everyone. As will be seen, it is also mistaken about the amount of poor relief available outside England.

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Mental Difference- Mental Impairment

Initially it should be noted that whilst less obvious indicators of mental impairment would not be noted or reacted to in earlier societies, major disturbance associated with mental impairment (which would now constitute ‘learning disability’) would historically often have been seen as subsumed in criminality or lunacy .

Lunacy is better researched.

Ryan and Thomas stated in 1980 in The Politics of Mental Handicap:

‘Recently, theoretical studies of the social history of madness, and of dependency and deviancy generally, have flourished, but similar studies of mental-handicap have hardly begun’

‘Before the late eighteenth century discussions of idiocy are scattered and fragmentary; those that do remain show clearly a preoccupation with the human status of idiots and with their origins.’

We shall see that neither of these statements are entirely well-founded.

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Belief Difference

WRITE

Forensic Difference

EXPAND AND POSSIBLY TRANSFER TO INTRODUCTION

Humankind is a social species. Living alone has rarely been an option; one must live as a part of society. Living as a group necessarily involves rules about expected behaviour. Rules lead to rule breaking. Rule breaking may lead to negative sanctions. This is the history of criminality. In different times and different cultures, criminality will be constructed in different ways; similarly, reactions to criminality will differ from time to time and place to place.

Prins notes:

‘In early times it was customary for punishment to be imposed for the commission of a criminal act regardless of the mental state of the person concerned; indeed, in England and Wales, the common law gave considerable over-riding priority to the need to preserve law and order. The Old Testament provides instances mainly of severe forms of justice without mitigating features being much in evidence.’

Social Difference

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The human tendency to classify and separate is universal. Human beings can be seen as ‘difference machines’ programmed to ascertain similarities and differences. This applies especially to social characteristics. Historic writings are full of evidence of multiple stratification; anthropology and sociology studies and details such stratification. ADD

This stratification is noticeable as class differentiation- the tendency of people to treat other groups of people differently depending upon their perceived social position.

Ethnic Difference

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Financial Difference

With social stratification and social difference comes poverty.

Poverty is relative- the seventeenth century middle class probably had less access to property than the modern day working class. The poor in early colonial America or the peasant in early revolutionary Russia may have felt less affected by poverty than the children of the great depression, despite fewer real resources. Relative poverty is notoriously difficult to define and analyse.

However, there is an absolute level of poverty, and this will be our main concern.

Bronislaw Geremek’s book Poverty: A History is an excellent source. He describes the subject of the book as:

‘…changes in the image of poverty and in collective reactions to poverty over the centuries.’

The foreword notes that the subtitle of the Italian edition is ‘Compassion and the Gallows’

Also useful is R Jutte’s book Poverty and Deviancy in Early Modern Europe

STILL TO NOTE TAKE ON JUTTE

Geremek:

‘The technical limit of poverty was obvious: it was the point at which the survival of the individual and of the family became threatened.’

A secondary, but still major, concern will be relative poverty, short of threat to survival, which denies full access to many of the necessities of life (material or spiritual) to a person. In modern society this has been analysed under the term ‘underclass’.

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Society before industrialisation was less individual and more communal. Individuals possessed few material objects and had little access to ‘money’. Property was held by families, clans, or by Lords; access was regulated (often not fairly) by the powerful, whether the family head or the lord of the manor. So long as one remained within the bounds of these social groupings, one was relatively well protected against absolute poverty unless the society as a whole was failing. However, there was little opportunity voluntarily to leave ones social position in a way we take for granted today. However, absolute poverty often rapidly occurred if society decided that one was unwanted and one was cast out- banished. Texts which imply that poverty of the type common in industrial societies was unknown in ancient times often fail to address banishment as a source of poverty and death by starvation.

Poverty, the Poor Laws etc.. Note on the reality of poverty before capitalism. Also poverty through exclusion.

Geremek:

‘In the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam poverty was given a saintly face, while wealth occupied a lesser place in the estimation of society and culture. However, in time this scale of values was reversed as ideologies adapted in response to social change.’

The Aged

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