How did people deal with infanticide during the Renaissance?

Question

How did people deal with infanticide during the Renaissance?

Answer 1

Legal sanctions against infanticide were introduced in the fourth century as Christianity infused secular laws. The Roman emperor Constantine, a Christian convert, proclaimed the slaying of a child by the child's father to be a crime. Infanticide was punishable by the death penalty by the end of the fourth century. Around the same time, the Christian emperor Valentinian declared that it was illegal for parents to fail to provide for their offspring. Thus, by the Middle Ages, infanticide was no longer condoned by either church or state in Europe. However, as a result of hard times and a high illegitimacy rate, infanticide was the most common crime in Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century.

During the Renaissance period, the criminal justice system took a strong position against infanticide. Widespread poverty and political unrest throughout Europe resulted in high infant mortality rates. Legislation in France demanded the death penalty for mothers convicted of this crime. In 1720 Prussia's King Friedrich Wilhem I decreed that women who killed their children should be sewn into sacks and drowned. Infanticide has existed as a separate statutory crime in England since 1922. Under English legislation (the Infanticide Act of 1938), a mother who kills her child within the first year of the child's life is assumed to be mentally ill. The highest crime she can be charged with is manslaughter. English juries are reluctant to sentence women to prison for this crime, while fathers can be charged with homicide.