ABSTRACT
This chapter examines in detail the phenomena of honour-based violence and forced marriages. After providing a definition and a description of the most common elements of these crimes, it presents an overview of social sciences scholarship on the concept of honour, including the positions of major sociologists such as Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Pierre Bourdieu. The chapter moves then to an analysis of the related concept of shame and guilt and their role in the maintenance of social control. Here a differentiation between traditional and modern societies (Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft) and the corresponding individual and societal control mechanisms will be drawn. The second part of the chapter deals more specifically with honour-based violence, its forms and dynamics as well as the peculiarities that these crimes present in Europe.
