Cohabitation, marriage, and murder: Woman-killing by male romantic partners

Using a national-level US homicide database that includes more than 400,000 homicides committed from 1976-1994, I calculated rates of uxoricide (the m urder of a woman by her romantic partner) by type of relationship (cohabiti ng or marital), ages of the partners, and age difference between partners. Women in cohabiting relationships are about nine times more likely to be ki lled by their partner than are women in marital relationships. Within marit al relationships, the risk of uxoricide decreases with a woman's age. Withi n cohabiting relationships, in contrast, middle-aged women are at greatest risk of uxoricide. Paralleling the uxoricide victimization rates, uxoricide perpetration rates are highest for young married men and for middle-aged c ohabiting men. Uxoricide risk generally increases with greater age differen ce between partners. These findings provide the first national-level replic ation of uxoricide risk patterns reported for a national-level Canadian sam ple. Discussion highlights future research directions, including identifyin g why women in cohabiting relationships incur greater risk of uxoricide tha n do women in marital relationships.