Globally, about 40 percent of all female murder victims (and just 6 percent of male murder victims) die at the hands of a former or present spouse or lover. The home becomes a dangerous place for women (as well as for children). Whereas almost all cases of homicides committed by males against their female partners occurred after the female ended the relationship or announced her intention to do so, most of the homicides committed by females against their male partners were reactions to severe male domestic violence.
Nearly all male murderers claim that: (a) they committed the murder out of love, and (b) it was a result of loving too much. We accept (a) and reject (b). Wife murder does not express profound love; rather, it is an abusive type of the problematic fusion model of love.
In our book, In the Name of Love: Romantic Ideology and Its Victims (Oxford, 2008), we (Aaron Ben-Ze’ev and Ruhama Goussinsky) suggest a novel approach for understanding this terrible phenomenon (see also Goussinsky, 2002).
