Reproductive-age women are overrepresented among perpetrators of husband killing

When a woman kills her husband, it is almost always an unplanned action of self-defense against a battering husband or a last-ditch attempt to survive a batterer's tyranny. Younger, reproductive-age women are battered and killed by husbands at higher rates than are older, postreproductive-age women. Because husband killing occurs in the context of self-defense or as a last-ditch effort to survive, reproductive-age women should kill their husbands at higher rates than do postreproductive-age women. I used a sample of 8,077 husband killings to test this hypothesis. Results support the hypothesis and document that (1) the highest rates of husband killing are for the youngest women, (2) the youngest husbands are at greatest risk of being killed by their wives, (3) women married to older men kill their husbands at higher rates than do women married to same-age men and women married to younger men, and (4) reproductive-age women kill their husbands at higher rates than do postreproductive-age women across two groups: women married to younger men and women married to older men. Discussion suggests directions for future work that can improve the identification of women at greatest risk for husband killing. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.