Abstract
Without delving deeply into evolutionary psychology or medieval history, I would like to present a profile of an individual who we see in policing in the investigation of intimate partner violence and honor-based violence. So called “honor killings” are often not motivated by religion but are ego driven and are related to control and ownership of another person(s).
Proprietorship is a seldom used word in this context but denotes “ownership” and total domination of another in a relationship context. It also describes the mindset of the individual who uses coercive control to dominate an intimate partner. Coercive control is a pattern of on-going intentional domineering tactics employed by (usually) male perpetrators with the intent of governing the female victim's thoughts, beliefs, or conduct and/or to punish them for resisting their rules.
This word is used almost exclusively in business or tax law but pertains to the exclusive ownership of something and in the realm of relationship, carries with it a sense of entitlement. This exaggerated sense of entitlement and need for control possesses the following characteristics: (1) a sense of superiority, as in the right of access to others' bodies (rape, abduction, torture, and control); (2) the right of my space over the freedom of others, or the right of power and superior status; and (3) complete inattention to others' reactions, showing no concern for the victims.
Lack of empathy, egocentricity, grandiosity, sense of entitlement, impulsivity, general lack of behavioral inhibitions, and need for control explain why this individual finds it so easy to victimize the vulnerable and achieve power and control over others. These are traits associated with psychopathy, and although many perpetrators of violence may not reach a score of 30 or even 25 on the Psychopathy Checklist-R, the combination of traits is noteworthy (Hare & Logan, 2007).
Coercive Control
In my experience, the abusers are highly narcissistic, often psychopathic individuals, who use manipulation and cruelty to satisfy their own need for power and control. Comorbidity between narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy is high and often it is the antisocial behavior with callous, lack of empathy, and criminal versatility that sets the two apart. Narcissists typically display the charm, grandiosity, and conning/manipulative elements common to psychopathy, but they may not have the antisocial facet of the psychopath. Both share the selfish focus of need gratification and the desire to control others (Logan, 2018).
A highly controlling man sees a woman in relationship with him as “his wife” but also as “his property.” When the woman finally gathers the courage to leave him, he takes it as a deep rejection or loss of control and tries to intimidate her or cajole her into returning. Should she return, he continues to control her by demands that she always be available for him and by rigid interrogation of her every move. This leads to repeated episodes of violence followed by insincere apologies and promises to “never hurt her again.”
The violence of the sexually jealous person is not irrational, in the sense that it is committed without a purpose or without conscious control; on the contrary, it is, in most cases, a deliberate and instrumental act of violence perpetrated to gain or maintain control of the “owned object” (not “love object”). For the jealous person does not love his lover; he loves himself, unfortunately, with an extremely inflamed and fragile ego (Dalrymple, 2003).
Coercive control is often directed at both adult and child victims (O'Leary & Maiuro, 2001), a situation likely to continue postparental separation.
United Kingdom's Serious Crime Act 2015 created a new offence for coercive behavior in intimate or familial relationships, which acknowledges this violence as “a purposeful pattern of behaviour which takes place over time in order for one individual to exert power, control or coercion over another” (Home Office, 2015, p. 3).
The United States Department of Justice defines domestic violence as “a pattern of abusive behavior…that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner” (United States Department of Justice, 2023).
In Canada, the latest Private Members Bill before Parliament is Bill C-332 that went through first reading on May 18, 2023. This enactment would amend the criminal code to create an offence of engaging in controlling or coercive conduct that has a significant impact on the person toward whom the conduct is directed, including a fear of violence, a decline in their physical or mental health, or a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities.
Offence proposed
264.01 (1) Everyone commits an offence who repeatedly or continuously engages in controlling or coercive conduct toward a person with whom they are connected that they know or ought to know could, in all the circumstances, reasonably be expected to have a significant impact on that person and that has such an impact on that person.
The tactics or behaviors exhibited by perpetrators of coercive control may include emotional abuse (e.g., victim blaming); undermining the victim's self-esteem and self-worth; verbal abuse (e.g., swearing, humiliation, and degradation); social abuse (e.g., systematic social isolation); economic abuse (e.g., controlling all money); psychological abuse (e.g., threats and intimidation); spiritual abuse (e.g., misusing religious or spiritual traditions to justify abuse); physical abuse (e.g., direct assaults on the body, food, and sleep deprivation); and sexual abuse (e.g., pressured/unwanted sex or sexual degradation) (Mitchell, 2011, pp. 2–3).
Honor Killing
Murder in the name of honor should replace the term “honor killing.” The killing of relatives (the vast majority of them female, and in most cases young daughters) for the crime of “dishonoring” the family is intolerable. Protecting one's honor, however cultural, if it contravenes the laws of a country, should be pursued to the fullest extent of that law.
These are crimes committed against vulnerable people, predominately women or girls to force them into doing what the perpetrator holds as acceptable values and practices. Culture and religion can be excuses for acts of violence (Mehdizadeh, 2016).
Honor killings are clearly related to male domination and low female status. It is not surprising that many of the cultures that practice honor killing also practice female infanticide. In these cultures, female life has negligible value, and so to destroy it is only a minor crime.
It is important to remember that honor killings are often equated with reactive violence that are impulsive and unpremeditated acts of violence. On the contrary, honor killings are usually deliberate, well planned, and premeditated acts when a person kills a female relative ostensibly to uphold his honor (Ratner, 2000).
Is it honor and shame or is it entitlement and proprietorship? I believe that sometimes the cultural designation of patrilineal society might hide a set of psychopathic traits or a psychopathological condition. Certainly the proprietorship is as evident here as it is in coercive control.
The largest predictors of intimate partner homicide (femicide) are, in fact, emotionally abusive and controlling behaviors and victim-instigated relationship separation (Stark, 2007).
Proprietorship and Femicide
Awareness and response to violence in the name of honor must be increased with a greater awareness of identifying women and family members at risk. Finally, there must be a focus on those who pose a risk to commit femicide. A thorough mental-state examination by a well-trained psychiatrist or psychologist with a good background of cultural education may reveal the presence of any irrational proprietary rights, psychopathology, and clearly identifiable mental health issues.