Getting Away with Murder: Culpability and Victimhood in Early Twentieth Century Danish Legal Judgment

One the night of November 2, 1919, Copenhagen-native Mrs. Skyldfri Andersen decided that she had had enough.  After her abusive husband once again came home drunk, she strangled him during his sleep.  Following the deed she reported his death to the local police, and within hours she was arrested for murder.  An otherwise respectable, working-class woman and the mother of five young children, Mrs. Andersen soon garnered the support of the popular press and many other working-class women, who organized on her behalf, lobbying for lenience in the up-coming murder trial.  Still, few had probably anticipated that Mrs. Andersen would in fact receive little more than a symbolic sentence from a male-dominated court.  This presentation explores the case against Mrs. Andersen, examining the ways in which gendered notions of guilt and culpability shaped legal decision-making in early 20^th-century Denmark.