Retterstøl, Nils:
Suicide in a cultural history perspective, part 2
Modern history and legislation
(First published in the Norwegian journal Suicidologi 1998, no. 3.)
This section deals with "modern history" and suicide legislation in a number of
countries. (Part 1 focuses on our own culture and antiquity, tracing various
philosophical disciplines. Part 3 deals with other cultures.)
We shall here examine philosophers and scientists from the 19th and 20th centuries,
looking first at their views on suicide, and then at Norwegian and international
legislation on suicide.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) emerges in the 19th century as the leading
exponent on attitudes to suicide. He has erroneously been regarded as a spokesman for
suicide. He was strongly influenced by Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhism.
According to Schopenhauer, life has no other meaning than the blind will to exist. All
existence is really misery. The question of morals consists of denying the will, which
may be accomplished by forsaking all striving or ambition, and seeking instead a state
similar to the Buddhist concept of nirvana. He nevertheless came to see suicide as a
mistake or foolish act because it did not provide genuine liberation from the sufferings
of life. He was nevertheless against considering suicide a crime or a sin, and believed
that man had the clear right to take his own life. Hence he criticized the sanctions
levied by the Church. However, he was fully aware that a suicide did not seek death
because he did not want life, but rather because he was not happy with conditions such
as they had become for him. In many ways Schopenhauer anticipated modern
psychiatric perceptions of suicide.
Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804) attitudes to suicide were quite clear. As a rational being
man is under the "the categorical imperative" which is unconditionally valid: "Always
act so that the principle behind your act can be made into a universal law". Suicide is
not acceptable based on the Kantian moral concept.
In the 19th century suicide eventually came to be considered more as a disgrace than a
sin or crime as had previously been the case. The disgrace primarily hung over the
survivors, the family, the bereaved. This was the century of strong family ties, the
century of the middle class, when it was important for the family to retain its social
status. Suicide thus came to be denied and was considered a family secret that was put
in the class of mental illness. Nietzsche (1844-1900) believed that an individual has
the full moral right to take his or her life. In his book Zarathustra he used "Freitod"
(free death) as a synonym for suicide. "Freitod" may be looked upon as voluntary
death. One should die at the appropriate time.
Psychiatry did not come to be considered as an established academic subject until the
beginning of the 19th century, when mental illnesses were regarded on a par with
other somatic illnesses, and it is from this time that we find the first scientific works
on suicide. In 1838, founders of psychiatric schools, such as Esquirol (1772-1840),
claimed that virtually everyone who committed suicide was in fact mentally ill ("La
maladie mentale"). Now was the day of the great systemizers in psychiatry, such as
Wilhelm Griesinger (1817-1869) and first and foremost Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926),
who by the turn of the century maintained that approximately 30% of suicides showed
open symptoms of insanity. Kraepelin's perceptions correspond well with current
findings.
Émile Durkheim's "Le Suicide" from 1897 was one of the most important books
published on this topic (Norwegian edition: Durkheim 1978). Durkheim (1858-1917)
maintained that there were four types of suicide, each of which referred to a particular
imbalance between the suicide and his social group. He defined the following
categories of suicide: the egoistic suicide, the altruistic suicide, the anomic suicide and
the fatalistic suicide. The egoistic suicide occurred when the suicide had lived apart
form the community and his will had thus been broken. The altruistic suicide was
characterized by the individual so strongly losing himself in the community that he
extinguished himself for the sake of the community. The anomic suicide was when the
suicide gave in to the normless society in which he lived. Finally, the fatalistic suicide
would typically occur when the individual completely subjected himself to rigid
control and discipline. Durkheim proved that there was a clear relationship between
the individual act that a suicide is and the society in which he lives. The better
integrated a person is in his society, the better he will be protected against destructive
acts.
Existentialist philosophy of the 20th century is generally against suicide. Jean-Paul
Sartre (1905-1980) pus it this way (1943): "Suicide cannot be considered an end of
life, whose basis I am ... Suicide is an absurdity which allows my life to succumb to
the absurd." Sartre postulates man's absolute freedom and that each and every person
carries the complete responsibility for his life.
Albert Camus (1913-1969) considered suicide as the only genuine problem in
philosophy. In Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942) he stated: "There is only one really serious
philosophical problem: suicide. The decision on whether or not life is worth living is
an answer to the fundamental question of philosophy. Everything else – whether the
world has three dimensions and the spirit nine or twelve categories – only comes later.
Meaninglessness, absurdity, alienation permeate life, but suicide does not constitute
the solution".
Perceptions of suicide in Norway
Before the introduction of Christianity in Norway, it appears that suicide could be
accepted to avoid dishonour or painful illnesses, and slaves could also follow their
master into death. As far as we know, it was not uncommon that women would follow
their men into death. But suicide was not glorified. The old sagas offer ample evidence
that killing a neighbour for a particular reason was perfectly acceptable ("the way he
stood made it so tempting to hew him"). However, it was not a heroic act to kill
oneself. Among the Sami it appears that in some cases a person would take his own
life by taking a "blessed run" with a sled off a precipice, or by being left in the
wilderness with no food, as we have described previously.
The first Norwegian laws do no appear to give evidence of clear perceptions of
suicide. The Gulating Act, probably taken down around 1100, thus states: "It is so that
each person who dies shall be taken to the church and be buried in holy soil, unless he
be an miscreant, betrayer of the King or a murderer, thief or a person who has taken
his/her own life. These last mentioned shall be buried in the tidal zone, where the sea
and the green turf meet ".
The oldest Christian laws stipulate that criminals shall not be buried in consecrated
soil. Those who commit suicide are mentioned among such malefactors. Magnus
Lagabøter's National Law, in force from 1274 up to 1687, mentions suicide as an
ubotamål (irremediable act, literally a deed that cannot be put right by paying a fine):
"So also if a man kills his own wife or the wife kills her husband, when the killer has
been unfaithful or has planned to be so, then it is ubotamål. So it is when a person
takes his own life. That is ubotamål."
In medieval Norway suicides were often buried among executed criminals, in the wild
woods or in the tidal zone. It was virtually a way of "punishing" the body of the
suicide. In the 1700s suicide in the Nordic countries was considered on a par with the
act of murder. Common belief in the Middle Ages was that a person who had taken his
life or that of somebody else would have particular difficulties finding peace in the
next world, and therefore would return as a spirit or ghost causing problems for
survivors he wanted to revenge himself on. From the 16th and into the 18th century
the executioner's assistant had the task of burying those who had committed suicide.
Many suicides were buried on Gallows Hill among evildoers and garbage. It is worth
noting that suicide attempts did not warrant punishment.
Eilert Sundt, founder of Norwegian sociology, who has already been dealt with
extensively in this magazine (No. 1, 1998), studied mortality in Norway. In his work
from 1855 he was aware that social conditions were important for triggering a suicide.
He was also aware of the importance of the collective or society, thus anticipating
some of the ideas Durkheim would later launch.
International legislation
Legislation regarding suicide attempts and suicides has followed the trends that have
dominated the attitude to suicide. Religious ideas and beliefs have been the primary
guidelines. We have already mentioned the many church synods that passed decisions
on suicide. In many countries suicide was branded a crime, as was also attempted
suicide . We know for certain that a suicide attempt was branded a crime in Britain
from 1745, and this law was still in force as late as 1961. I have personal experience of
how this legislation was practised in London. In 1956 I worked as a subordinate doctor
in a mental hospital (Runwell Hospital). The law caused major difficulties for the
treatment of patients who had attempted suicide. They risked being dragged to court if
anyone reported them for their attempted suicide before they were hospitalized. Thus
it was a priority task for us subordinate doctors to establish that illness had driven
them to their suicide attempts. With the right declaration they would thus be able to
avoid a court case. Both a suicide and a suicide attempt would be coroner's cases. The
last person to be sentenced for a suicide attempt in Britain was a man named Griffiths,
who received two years in jail; a sentence that was handed down in 1960. Griffiths
was a prisoner who had attempted to commit suicide in his cell, and his punishment
for this offence was two more years in prison!
Attempted suicide continues to be a punishable offence in some countries, primarily in
countries that have been under British rule. The International Association for Suicide
Prevention has urged the governments of these countries to remove punishment
provisions for suicide attempts from their laws.
Helping a person to commit suicide is a punishable offence in most countries, as it is
also in Norway.
Norwegian legislation
We have previously mentioned how suicide according to Norwegian legislation was
held to be a dishonourable killing. From 1274 up to 1687 Magnus Lagabøte's Landslov
(National Law) was in force across the entire country. The Norwegian book of laws
that came into force in 1687, Christian V's Norwegian Law, which also applied to
Iceland and the Faeroes, stipulated that a person who had taken his own life could not
be buried in the church or churchyard unless he had taken his life in illness or rage.
The stipulation for clergymen and how they were to treat the bodies of those who had
committed suicide was clear: "They must not cast earth in the coffin nor preach for
any dead person who for his ill deed has been executed or who has wilfully taken his
own life ".
Not only these persons' "body and soul" were subjected to punishment. Descendants
were also penalized in that the inheritance of a person who had committed suicide
would go to the King, corresponding to what today would be the public coffers.
"Whoever kills himself has forfeited the right to his properties and must not be buried
in the church nor in the churchyard unless he killed himself in illness or rage".
On the other hand, there was no punishment for attempted suicide in Christian V's
Norwegian Book of Laws, but apparently the law was interpreted so that attempted
suicide was punishable in certain cases, such as when the person in question was
attempting to escape another punishment. The question of whether attempted suicide
should be a punishable offence was discussed by the Penal Code Commission from
1828, after Norway had seceded from the union with Sweden. The Penal Code
Commission rejected the idea of making suicide a punishable offence on the logical
grounds that any form of punishment might push the person in question to attempt
suicide again.
The Penal Code from 1842 rescinded the stipulations that any assets belonging to
those who had committed suicide, would not go to his family but to the State and that
a person who had taken his own life could not be buried in consecrated ground. Hence,
from 1842 these persons were allowed into the churchyard. However, the ban on
ceremonially casting earth on the coffin was retained, not to be abolished until 1897,
in the Act relating to Churches and Churchyards. Finally the ban on preaching over the
body of a person who had committed suicide was rescinded by an Act in 1902.
That brings us into the century we have just put behind us. When considering the
condemnation that we see suicides have been subjected to, it is not very difficult to
understand why many people have found this to be a taboo-laden issue. From 1902,
legislation has been restricted to making the aiding and abetting of a suicide a
punishable offence, as is the case in most countries.
There are special legal problems when it comes to suicide and life insurance. Most
insurance companies have special conditions with respect to suicide. In this country
the following reservation clause is common in connection with life insurance policies:
"If the insured party dies within the two first years after taking out or renewing the
insurance policy and the cause is suicide, the insurance is only valid if there is reason
to assume that the insurance policy was taken out with no thought to suicide. If the
insurance policy is deemed invalid the company will pay back the premiums without
interest, provided that the insurance includes a mortality risk".
However, in Norway the insurance company must prove that the insurance was taken
out with suicide as the intent, and as this is difficult to prove, this Act has in practice
not been applied.
The case is different when it comes to accident insurance. Suicide is commonly
omitted from the definition of accident. A suicide will only be accepted as an accident
if the person in question was in a state of mind that rendered him or her unable to
understand that the act could lead to death.
The common question asked by an insurance company regarding an accident
insurance policy is whether there is a preponderance of evidence that the insured
person was in such a state of mind when committing suicide that he could not
understand the consequences of his act. If this can be answered in the affirmative, a
subsequent question is generally whether the person in question was in an acute state
of mental confusion due to extenuating circumstances, or whether this mental
confusion was caused by mental illness. These questions may be hard to answer, but in
general it may be stated that it is difficult to make an accident insurance policy apply
to a suicide.