NCJ Number
148417
Journal
Criminal Behavior and Mental Health Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: (1993) Pages: 1-11
Date Published
1993
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The term "crime of passion" has been widely accepted as justifying killings motivated by jealousy, usually in response to a real or perceived infidelity.
Abstract
Society's attitudes to the violence of jealousy is usually influenced by shifts in both legal practice and the dominant cultural construction of jealousy. In most Western societies, honor and shame have played central roles, but nonetheless, have been offset by moral and legal imperatives mediated through conscience and civil authority. However, in societies where codes of honor and fear of public shame have been replaced by ethical systems which require the individual to mediate matters of duty, the crime of passion may be viewed differently. This author argues that jealousy needs to be moved from the realm of psychopathology and restored to the range of normal human experience. When jealousy is confronted in clinical practice, the therapist must identify those cases where the emotion is largely or entirely determined by an underlying mental disorder. 29 references