ABSTRACT
Pathological sexual jealousy is, perhaps, the most dangerous example of all domestic violence because research suggests that male sexual jealousy often leads to spousal homicide. Daly and Wilson50 conclude: ‘In every society for which we have been able to find a sample of spousal homicides, the story is basically the same. Most cases arise out of the husband’s jealous, proprietary, violent responses to his wife’s (real or imagined) infidelity or desertion.’ Chimbos51 found a similar pattern in a Canadian study of convicted men and women. In his study he found that the murder came after ‘a history of quarrels, usually about sexual jealousy and possessiveness’.52
