Elovikova Yu.S.
The history of criminal responsibility for the murder of illegitimate children
Keywords: parents, children born out of wedlock, children born to unmarried parents, infanticide, filicide, neonaticide, infanticide
The rise in the number of children born outside registered marriage and a persistently high rate of hidden infanticides, committed predominantly against such children, makes actual the relevance of drawing on historical experience of the legal regulation of liability for such offences and requires examining the evolution of the legal status of the persons concerned and its impact on the protection of human life under criminal law. The purpose of the study is to analyse the evolution, throughout Russian history, of criminal liability of parents for the murder of illegitimate children, viewed through the prism of the legal status of illegitimate persons. Materials and methods. In the course of the research, dialectical, historical and comparative legal methods were used, as well as a set of general scientific methods such as analysis, synthesis and generalization. The sources of the criminal law of Ancient Russia, pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern periods, scientific literature and analytical publications were used. Results. It was established that, during the pagan period and in Ancient Rus’, the legal status of illegitimate children was not specifically defined by law, and filicide was not considered a crime. In the Muscovite State (XVI–XVII centuries), as class distinctions took shape, the murder of an illegitimate child came to be classified as a specific offence (Article 26, Chapter 22 of Sobornoye Ulozheniye dated 1649 provided for the death penalty), whilst the murder of legitimate children was punishable by only one year’s imprisonment. During the imperial period (XIX – early XX century), a shift towards a more humane approach took place: the 1845 Code introduced, for the first time, a preferential provision that took into account the motives of ‘shame and fear’ and the condition of the woman at the time of childbirth. In the Soviet period after 1917, the category of "illegitimate" was eliminated, and criminal liability became uniform for the murder of any child. It was found that, throughout history, the main motive for infanticide has been a woman’s fear of public condemnation for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, whilst mitigation of legal liability was hand in hand with the expansion of the rights of children born out of wedlock. Conclusions. The evolution of criminal liability for the murder of illegitimate children was directly related to the change in their legal status. During periods of legal discrimination (the Muscovite State, the imperial period prior to the XIX century), the murder of an illegitimate child was regarded either as a serious offence (punishable by death) or as an act warranting special leniency on the grounds of ‘shame and fear’. Granting equal rights to children born out of wedlock and those born in wedlock in 1917 led to decriminalization of a specific offence and protection of the lives of all children on an equal footing. In modern Russia, retention in Article 106 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of such a subjective criterion as a ‘psychologically traumatic situation’– which is in fact linked to pregnancy outside marriage–constitutes a historical anachronism. The paper justifies the need to remove Article 106 from the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and to classify neonaticide under sub-paragraph (c) of Part 2 of Article 105 as the murder of a minor in a defenseless state.
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About authors
- Elovikova Yulia S.
- Post-Graduate Student, Department of Criminal Law Disciplines, Chuvash State University, Russia, Cheboksary (yulia_elovikova@mail.ru; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3348-100X)
Article link
Elovikova Yu.S. The history of criminal responsibility for the murder of illegitimate children [Electronic resource] // Oeconomia et Jus. – 2026. – №3. P. 81-108. – URL: https://oecomia-et-jus.ru/en/single/2026/3/7/. DOI: 10.47026/2499-9636-2026-3-81-108.
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