Reproductive-age women are overrepresented among perpetrators of husband killing

Abstract

When a woman kills her husband, it is almost always an unplanned action of self‐defense against a battering husband or a last‐ditch attempt to survive a batterer's tyranny. Younger, reproductive‐age women are battered and killed by husbands at higher rates than are older, postreproductive‐age women. Because husband killing occurs in the context of self‐defense or as a last‐ditch effort to survive, reproductive‐age women should kill their husbands at higher rates than do postreproductive‐age women. I used a sample of 8,077 husband killings to test this hypothesis. Results support the hypothesis and document that (1) the highest rates of husband killing are for the youngest women, (2) the youngest husbands are at greatest risk of being killed by their wives, (3) women married to older men kill their husbands at higher rates than do women married to same‐age men and women married to younger men, and (4) reproductive‐age women kill their husbands at higher rates than do postreproductive‐age women across two groups: women married to younger men and women married to older men. Discussion suggests directions for future work that can improve the identification of women at greatest risk for husband killing. Aggr. Behav. 26:309–317, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Couple Age Discrepancy and Risk of Intimate Partner Homicide

“…For example, the mean age of women who are at least 15 years older than the man is 54, but their ages range from 36 to 82; the mean age of men when the woman is at least 15 years older is 33, but the range is 20 to 52. Previous studies have also reported that reproductive age women (women who are less than 45 years old) are overrepresented among offenders and victims of spousal homicides (Shackelford, 2000;Shackelford et al, 2000). An analysis of the present data confirms these results: the woman was less than 45 years in 82.9% of women-offender IPHs, and in 82.8% of women-victim IPHs.…”

“…This study first documents that the association between extreme age discrepancy and elevated homicide risk occurs among all heterosexual intimate couples, not only cohabiting married or common-law couples. Using a Chicago dataset that includes all heterosexual intimate partner homicides, this analysis replicates national level findings for cohabiting legal spouses and common-law spouses (Mercy & Saltzman, 1989;Shackelford, 2000Shackelford, , 2001aShackelford, , 2001bShackelford et al, 2000). Specifically, couples in which the woman is older by at least 10 years or in which the man is older by at least 16 years have substantially higher risk of IPH, compared to a Rates for the three categories, women 10 to 12 years older, women 13 to 15 years older and women more than 15 years older, are based on fewer than 10 cases (8, 5, and 8, respectively); see Table 6.…”

“…This is an important methodological consideration, because age has been associated with risk of IPH offending (Shackelford, 2000), and because the wife's age is known to be associated with her risk of homicide victimization (Dumas & Perón, 1992;Mercy & Saltzman, 1989;Shackelford et al, 2000;. In the national level Canadian Violence Against Women survey (Johnson, 1996), both victim's and partner's ages predict violent victimization by a current spouse, with the risk at age group 18 to 24 years three times higher than the next highest age group.…”

“…This supports the first hypothesis, and replicates the results of studies examining only cohabiting legal spouses or common-law spouses in national United States and Canadian data (e.g., Daly & Wilson, 1988;Mercy & Saltzman, 1989;Shackelford, 2000Shackelford, , 2001aShackelford, , 2001bShackelford et al, 2000;Wilson & Daly, 1992, 1994. The rate of IPH for couples in which the woman is 16 or more years older than the man (21.41 per 100,000 couples per year) was four times higher than for couples with no age difference (5.25 per 100,000 couples per year).…”

“…They found this to be true regardless of who was the older party, and for both common-law (nonmarital, cohabiting) marriages and legal marriages. Shackelford (2000Shackelford ( , 2001aShackelford ( , 2001b; see also Mercy & Saltzman, 1989;Shackelford et al, 2000) replicated these results in the United States using a national level database, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Reports for 1976 through 1994. An advantage of these national level studies is that they use population-based rates.…”