Women with Children Sired by Previous Partners Incur Excess Risk of Uxoricide

Abstract

Information about uxoricides (killings of wives) in one Canadian city between 1974 and 1995 was extracted from media reports. Among those slain women who were mothers of coresident minor children, half had children sired by former partners, compared to just 7% of comparable such mothers in the population at large, yielding an odds ratio of 12.7. This risk factor is likely to be widespread but has not previously been demonstrated because homicide archives typically lack relevant information. Female-initiated separation was apparently a motivational factor in more than half of all uxoricides, and media reports can be informative with respect to the timing and circumstances of uxoricide risk in relation to marital dissolution.

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