JURY OF WOMEN - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

JURY OF WOMENAuthored

The Law Mind • 1091 words

Definition

A jury of women was a specialized procedural device in common law, composed entirely of women, convened for a narrow set of fact-finding purposes where the physical condition of a woman's body was the question at issue. It was not a general trial jury but a purpose-built panel called in specific circumstances — primarily to determine whether a woman was pregnant and, if so, whether that pregnancy was sufficiently advanced to be legally significant.

Two recognized occasions gave rise to a jury of women at common law:

1. Upon a writ de ventre inspiciendo — a writ directed to the sheriff commanding him to cause a physical examination of a named woman in the presence of twelve men and an equal number of women, to determine whether she was with child, and if so, how far advanced the pregnancy was. This was used, among other situations, when a widow claiming to be pregnant with her late husband's heir sought to protect her right to dower or the unborn child's claim to inheritance.

2. In criminal proceedings — when a woman sentenced to death pleaded her pregnancy as a basis for delaying execution (a plea known as "pleading the belly"), a jury of matrons was empaneled to determine the truth of the claim. A finding of "quick with child" would stay execution at least until after delivery.

The jury of women is therefore primarily an artifact of a historical legal system that (a) excluded women from ordinary juries while simultaneously recognizing that certain factual questions — particularly those involving female anatomy — required female evaluators, and (b) treated pregnancy as a legally consequential status affecting property rights, criminal punishment, and succession.

---

Common Confusion

The jury of women is closely related to, and sometimes used interchangeably with, the term JURY OF MATRONS. The distinction, where one is drawn, is practical rather than doctrinal: "jury of matrons" typically refers to the criminal-law panel convened on a plea of pregnancy by a condemned woman, while "jury of women" is the broader term covering both the criminal and civil contexts, including the writ de ventre inspiciendo. Researchers should not assume that all historical sources observe this distinction — many use the terms without differentiation.

Neither the jury of women nor the jury of matrons should be confused with the modern movement toward women's jury service. These historical panels were not a recognition of women's civic equality; they were a narrow exception to general female exclusion from jury duty, justified entirely by the perceived limitation that male jurors were unqualified to assess female physical conditions.

---

Why It Matters in Research

This term is primarily of historical significance. Researchers will encounter it in:

— Pre-twentieth-century common law sources, particularly English and early American treatises and court records dealing with estate disputes, dower rights, or capital criminal procedure.

— Sources discussing the plea of the belly in capital cases. This plea was a recognized procedural mechanism in English and early American law and appears in both criminal records and commentary well into the nineteenth century.

— Succession and inheritance disputes where the posthumous birth of an heir was contested. The writ de ventre inspiciendo was the procedural mechanism for resolving these contests, and its associated jury of women was part of that process.

Researchers should be alert to the following traps:

First, the jury of women was never a general-purpose institution. Finding the term in a source does not mean the source discusses ordinary jury composition. Its appearance signals a very specific procedural context.

Second, the historical record is uneven. The writ de ventre inspiciendo was rarely invoked in American practice and may appear in American sources primarily as learned reference to English common law rather than as living procedure.

Third, the abolition of the jury of women was not a single legislative event. As women gained the right to serve on ordinary juries through the twentieth century — a development culminating in constitutional developments following the Nineteenth Amendment and later equal protection jurisprudence — the specialized jury of women became obsolete rather than formally repealed. Researchers looking for an explicit abolition statute may not find one.

Fourth, corpus searches should include variant phrasings: "jury of matrons," "jury of twelve matrons," "matrons' jury," and "ventre inspiciendo" will surface the same institution under different labels depending on the source and context.

---

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the clearest surviving legal dictionary treatment of this term. Bouvier identifies precisely two occasions for the jury of women — the writ de ventre inspiciendo and the plea of pregnancy in capital cases — and describes the composition of the de ventre inspection as requiring twelve men and as many women, all summoned by the sheriff. This is consistent with the English common law tradition described in Blackstone's Commentaries and earlier authorities.

Bouvier's account is essentially procedural and descriptive rather than analytical. It does not engage with the tension inherent in excluding women from general jury service while deploying them as specialized fact-finders — a contradiction that later legal historians have noted. Researchers using Bouvier should understand that the entry reflects the institution as a functioning (if rare) procedural tool, not as a historical curiosity.

What the historical dictionaries do not address is the institution's decline. Bouvier and comparable nineteenth-century sources treat the jury of women as a live procedural option. They do not anticipate that women's eventual inclusion in regular jury pools would render the specialized panel unnecessary, nor do they address the constitutional dimensions that would emerge in the twentieth century around sex-based distinctions in jury composition.

---

Jurisdictional Note

The jury of women was an English common law institution adopted in varying degrees by American jurisdictions. Its practical use in the United States appears to have been limited even in the colonial and early national periods. Some American states had no recorded use of the writ de ventre inspiciendo at all. Researchers working in specific state records should not assume the institution was uniformly received.

---

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

The Nineteenth Amendment -- Women's Suffrage and Sex Equality (The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia) — for the constitutional developments that rendered sex-based jury exclusions untenable and made the jury of women's premise legally incoherent under modern equal protection doctrine.

---

JURY OF WOMENmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A jury of women is given in two cases; viz.: on writ de ventre inspiciendo, which was a writ directed to the sheriff, commanding him that, in the presence of twelve men and as many wo- men, he cause examination to be made whether a woman therein named is with child or not, and if with child, tuen about what time it will be born, and that he certify the same. It is granted in a case when a widow, whose husband had lands in fee-simple, marries again soon after her husband's death, and declares herself preg- nant by her first husband, and, under that pretext, withholds the lands from the next heir; Cro. Eliz. 506; Fleta, lib. 1, с. 15. In that case, although the jury was made up of men and women, the examination was made by the latter; 1 Madd. Ch. 11; 2 P. Wms. 591. Such a writ was issued in the case of In re Blackburn, 14 L. J. N. s. Ch. 336. In New York it is said that an application was made for such a jury in the Rollwagen will case and denied upon the ground that "as the lady was not going to be hanged and did not herself solicit the investigation, there was no power to compel her to submit to it;" 10 Alb. L. J. 3. In the opinion of the court in 141 U. S. 250 the statement is made by Mr. Justice Gray that this writ has never been used in this country. The authorities cited in this title show that this statement is too broad both as to the use of the common-law writ and as to physical examination, which title see further as to this case. Where pregnancy is pleaded by a con- demned woman, in delay of execution, a Jury of twelve discreet matrons was called from those in court, who were impanelled to try the fact and report to the court. They chose a fore-matron from their own number. On their returning a verdict of "enceinte," the execution was delayed until the birth, and in some cases the punishment was commuted to perpetual exile. When the criminal was merely privement enceinte, and not quick (see QUICKENING), there was no respite. See 3 Hale, Pl. Cr. 412; Taylor, Med. Jur., Bell's ed. 520; Archb. Cr. Pl. 187. The proceed- ing has been said to be obsolete, though it has been recognized in America; and at a very recent date in England, in Reg. v. Webster, tried before Lord Denman at the Old Bailey in London in July, 1879. The plea of pregnancy was interposed before sentence, and immediately "a jury of matrons selected from a crowd of females in the gallery were impanelled "and sworn, and the inquisition was held forthwith before the judge. The result was a verdict that the prisoner was not quick with child and she was sentenced. The verbatim report of the proceedings may be found in 9 Cent. L. J. 94. In State v. Arden, 1 Bay 487, the plea was allowed and an inquisi- tion held, but the prisoner was found not pregnant and sentenced to death. In State v. Holeman, 13 Ark. 105, the plea was overruled in a larceny case where a woman was convicted of a penitentiary offence. In the case of Mrs. Bathsheba Spooner, who was tried in Massachusetts in 1778 for the murder of her husband, she being under sentence of death, petitioned the governor and council for a respite on account of pregnancy. A writ de ventre inspiciendo was issued by the council to the sheriff directing him to summon a jury of two men midwives and twelve discreet and lawful matrons "to ascertain the truth of her plea." The verdict was that she "is not quick with child," and she was exe- cuted, but a post mortem examination proved that her assertion was true; 3 Harv. L. Rev. 44; 39 Alb. L. J. 326. It is difficult to see by what reason or authority this proceeding can be assumed not to be available, according to the course of the common law, in jurisdictions in which that system of jurisprudence is in force, particularly where, as in some states, it is imbedded in the constitution. It has been said on this point: "While the cases are very rare, there is no evidence (or au- thority, it might be added) that a jury of women is not a part of the machinery of the law in those states in which the com- mon law prevails." 12 A. & E. Encyc. of L. 331. It may be safely affirmed that no woman who pleads pregnancy in delay of execu- tion will in any common-law jurisdiction be sentenced to death without examination into the truth of the fact pleaded, and in the absence of other statutory provision, it is difficult to see how she could be de- prived of this common-law right. It is un- doubtedly true that the proceeding is anti- quated and ill adapted to the purpose, and therefore the subject is well worthy of legislative attention. Doubtless the rarity of such legislation is due to the infrequency of capital trials of women. In one state at least the contingency is provided for. In New York it is provided by statute that if there is reasonable ground to believe that a female defendant sentenced to death is pregnant, a jury of six physicians shall be impanelled to inquire into the fact, and if it is found by the inquisition that she is "quick with child," the execut

JURY OF WOMENmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A statute which authorizes stay of exe- cution for an unreasonable and indefinite period, on judgments rendered on pre- existing contracts, is void; 41 Pa. 441; 31 Mo. 205; a law permitting a year's stay upon judgments where security is given has been held invalid; 6 Heisk. 93; S. c. 19 Am. Rep. 593. See Cooley, Const. Lim., 2d ed. 354, n.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In