NCJ Number
73403
Date Published
1980
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The main characteristics and patterns of marital murders in New South Wales (Australia) are discussed and compared to those of other countries.
Abstract
The study is based on an examination of all cases of marital murder in the New South Wales police files for the periods 1958 to 1967 and 1976 to 1978 (175 and 77 cases respectively). While three-quarters of the spouse murders were committed by men, husbands were the most likely victims of all female killers. As in other murder cases, murder of a spouse in New South Wales was confined to individuals of low socioeconomic status. If alcohol consumption was involved, it was characteristically the husband (or both partners), not the wife who was drinking. One third of the wife murders and nearly half of the husband murders had a history of previous domestic violence, generally with the husband acting as the aggressor. Eighty-five percent of the murders occurred in the victims' homes with the bedroom being the most frequent location for wife murder and the kitchen the preferred place of wives murdering their husbands. The most frequent precipitating cause in marital murder was the marriage relationship itself--the tension arising from the fights and obligations of marriage. Other precipitating causes included disputes over money matters or personal deportment and mercy killings. With regard to the pattern of interaction between killer and victim, the killer usually initiated the physical aggression, although husbands, even when victims, were sigificantly more often the aggressors than were wives. While marital murders in England and New South Wales show many comparable features, American studies show significant differences of pattern. More American women are likely to murder their husbands or are willing to take the aggressors' role in domestic violence, indicating perhaps that American women are beginning to abandon the long suffering female role model. The article includes bibliographical footnotes.