ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the severity of spousal violence in general and considers in detail one of the most severe types of partner violence: the homicide, or murder, of one partner. Several differences between male and female perpetrators of domestic homicide were immediately apparent. Additional data from the Cazenave and Zahn study revealed that men and women showed very different styles of killing. Men were much more likely to use guns, to kill their spouses by beating them to death, or to strangle them. Men and women also tended to differ in the reasons why they killed their spouses. Although poor and minority women were more likely to receive jail terms for their killings, they were by no means the only domestic killers. It is in the dynamics of the violent relationships, in the severity of the abuse, and in the personality adopted by these battered women that the key to their lethal behavior lies.
