Article
CORPUS DELICTI: JUST DESSERTS
"Men execute Men, women are executed by nature."
Meghan Strell (Sister Luyt/Artistic Director) reflects on
the process of doing historical research for Corpus Delicti: Just Desserts.
When I first came across this line of text: "Men execute
Men, women are executed by nature," I was confused about how and
why punishments were determined by a person's gender. What were the motivations
behind that? Was death by nature supposed to be more gentle or more cruel?
Which is worse? To be a man, sentenced to die at the hands
of an executioner (usually by the rope), or to be a woman, sentenced to
die by nature: burned alive at the stake (death by fire), buried alive
(death by earth), or stuffed in a sack with a cat, a snake, and a dog
and then thrown into a river to drown (death by water)?
Personally I'm most horrified by the burning. So I concluded
that death by nature was intended to be more severe. It would also spare
the executioner the shame of picking on someone weaker than himself.
I thought that women were definitely getting the short end
of the stick until I read more detailed accounts about how men were punished.
When hanging wasn't enough, their hearts were cut out while they were
still alive, and were thrown repeatedly into their faces. That struck
me as particularly wretched. These images continue to huant me—the
cruelty that we as humans are capable of.
Which of the following was
not proposed as a treatment for hysteria?
A. Holding garlic and feces under the nose
B. Burning fragrant spices between the legs
C. Removing the uterus
D. Taking a soothing bath of milk and honey
E. Undergoing electric shock therapy
F. Having an orgasm
G. Getting a lobotomy
H. Taking a ride in a whirling chair
The correct answer is D. The Greeks believed that
holding feces and garlic under the nose, and burning fragrant spices between
the legs would lure a woman's wandering womb back into it's proper place.
By the late 1800s, hysteria was a term that came to refer to sexual dissatisfaction.
At that time, treatments usually involved the use of vibrators or psychoanalysis.
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