Uxoricide

Uxoricide (from Latin uxor meaning "wife" and -cide, from caedere meaning "to cut, to kill") is murder of one's wife or romantic partner. It can refer to the act itself or the person who carries it out.

Overall, rates of uxoricide are much higher than rates of mariticide. Of the 2340 deaths at the hands of intimate partners in America in 2007, female victims made up 70%. In the region of South-East Asia, 55% of all murdered women died at the hands of their partner, followed by 40% in the African region and 38% in the Americas. Preliminary findings of an ongoing study estimate that globally, approximately 35% of murders of women are committed by intimate partners.

Rates of uxoricide seem to fluctuate across western cultures, with approximately seven women being killed per month in England and Wales, approximately four women per month in Australia, and approximately 76 women per month in the United States.

Evolved Homicide Theory states that men have evolved a particular killing strategy in order to deprive male rivals of sexual access to their mate and to eradicate the damage caused by infidelity. Therefore, when a man experiences partner infidelity, he may kill his partner as a reproductive strategy. The male has devoted a lot of his resources in order to retain his mate, thus infidelity incurs severe damage to a man's reproductive reputation, which then may potentially hinder his ability to attract and retain future mates. As a result, evolved homicide theory states that the killing of a partner is an adaptive response to avoid suffering the damage associated with partner infidelity, and can be viewed as an intentional act rather than a "slip-up".

Proponents of Psychodynamic theories have offered explanations for the mechanisms underlying the occurrence of Uxoricide. It has been suggested that men who kill their partners experience both an unconscious dependence on their wife and a resentment of her. These men wish to leave the relationship, but unknowingly perceive themselves as too helpless to do so, which culminates into a belief that killing the wife is the only way to be free of her. This approach also offers an alternative explanation for instances where a man commits uxoricide and subsequent immediate suicide - the man ends his life not due to guilt, but instead due to his perceived helplessness and dependency.

Links have also been established between violence in childhood and likelihood of uxoricide occurring. Psyschodynamic researchers argue that being the victim of abuse in childhood leads to being a perpetrator of domestic abuse in adulthood via the route of defense mechanisms - in this case, violence is an unconscious defensive adaption to childhood trauma and other adverse events. Other psychodynamic researchers have reported that Thematic Apperception tests reveal significant trends of rejection by a mother or wife in men who commit uxoricide.Psychoanalytic dream interpretation has also argued that unconscious conflict manifests into violent outbursts. For example, in one instance one man had experienced and recorded over 200 distressing, mostly violent dreams prior to murdering his wife.

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