Gender, intimate partner homicide, and rurality in early-twentieth-century New South Wales

Abstract

Abstract Rural criminological literature on lethal domestic violence and feminist historical research on the patriarchal judgment of women accused of killing male intimate partners (IPs) have developed a dystopic image of the past for nonurban women. This paper questions that impression by asking whether women were more likely than men to be convicted of IP murder, and whether rural women were treated more harshly than urban women. Through quantitative analysis of 221 IP murder trials in New South Wales, 1901–1955, plus four representative case studies, it reveals that women tried for IP murders in rural areas were treated more leniently than their urban counterparts and significantly less harshly than male perpetrators of IP homicide. This paper demonstrates how historical criminological analysis of illustrative qualitative evidence, grounded in quantitative data on locational distinctions, can expose significant variations over time and place in the fate of abused women prosecuted for IP homicide.