CIRCE IN CRINOLINE - DOMESTIC POISONINGS IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND

During the Victorian era, about forty women were tried for poisoning t heir husbands. Despite the small number, the cases loomed large in the public imagination and were given widespread and sensational coverage by the press. Evidence presented as poison trials tells us much regar ding Victorian ideas about science, domestic routines, patterns of mar ital conflict, and attitudes toward women in general. Fears of domesti c poisonings caused Parliament to restrict poison sales in 1851 and re inforced negative stereotypes of women as secretive and conniving. Som e women, however, may have found the image of the poisoner empowering, and the threat to poison appeared to be a common female defense again st abusive husbands.