“Sweet Violence”. Gender, Law and Literary Tropes in the Doctrinal Debate on Rape (19th–20th Century)

Abstract

This study explores the historical and legal construction of sexual violence, highlighting how cultural stereotypes, literary tropes, and moral prejudices have shaped criminal law and perceptions of the victim for centuries. Beginning with the myth of Lucretia and continuing through the doctrinal debates of the nineteenth century, the research examines how legal science has regulated female sexuality primarily in relation to family honour and social order, rather than individual freedom. Particular attention is paid to the enduring presence of justificatory narratives of violence, such as the vis grata puellis topos drawn from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, which has persisted through the ages and still echoes within contemporary judicial practice. Through the analysis of key jurists such as Filangieri, Carrara, and Lucchini, the work argues that in the XIX century the secularisation of criminal law had not resulted in the genuine emancipation of female subjectivity, but rather in its reformulation within newly codified moral hierarchies. Far from having been overcome, many legal and cultural mechanisms continue to sustain a rhetoric of suspicion that frames the woman as a subject to be disciplined. This essay seeks to contribute to the critical deconstruction of these paradigms and to encourage a deeper reflection on sexual violence as a structural, rather than episodic, phenomenon.