1st Edition
Parricide and Violence against Parents A Cross-Cultural View across Past and Present
Parricide and Violence Against Parents takes a historical and criminological approach to the research on parricide and violence against parents, placing the research in the context of social development from the 1500s to contemporary society, and giving a global overview and comparison.
The book examines parricide and violence against parents as historically and culturally sensitive phenomena. It offers evidence on a seemingly rare subject from different eras, areas, and cultures, and then uses the cross-disciplinary data to produce a new, systematic insight for the reader. Case studies shift the discussion from the contemporary focus on adolescent to parent abuse, to examining the sources of conflict during life cycles of parents and their offspring. A historical approach illuminates the variations in conflicts between parents and their offspring that are shaped by the life stages of the victims and offenders themselves across time. The book argues that parental authority has been marked by property ownership and tax paying responsibilities throughout history. The continued possession of property resulted in power, the reluctance to part with it, becoming a notable source of conflict across generations within families. Parental authority was protected by means of heavy penalties and punishments and didactic teachings in almost every society at every stage of historical development. It was also challenged constantly by children as a part of their coming into adulthood. The abuse of parents has often been connected to situations where adult children were prevented from gaining the amount of independence appropriate to their position in life. This led to disputes over authority and the legitimate grounds for that authority.
Offering an insight into complicated and interconnected histories of generational conflicts and how they affect modern families in different parts of the world, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of criminology, history of crime, history of the family, family violence, homicide studies, gender studies, history of emotions, political violence, and social work.
Introduction
Part I. Approaches to violence against parents
Chapter 1: Defining violence against parents
Chapter 2: Conceptualising violence against parents
Chapter 3: Historicising violence against parents
Part II. Criminology of violence against parents
Chapter 4: Defining the crimeChapter 5: Examining the offenders
Chapter 6: Responding to violence against parents
Part III. Regional overviews: where and when
Chapter 7: European parricide and parent abuse
Chapter 8: Modernising parricide: the US and the West
Chapter 9: In the heart of patriarchy: the Far East
Chapter 10: Colonialism and resistance
ConclusionIndex
Biography
Marianna G. Muravyeva is Professor of Russian Law at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
Phillip Shon is Professor of Criminology at the Ontario Tech University, Canada.
Raisa Maria Toivo is Professor of History at the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experience at Tampere University, Finland.
"Parricide and Violence Against Parents is a groundbreaking work that is both accessible and compelling. By innovatively drawing together historical and criminological perspectives, it offers a fascinating analysis of fatal and non-fatal violence towards parents across a wide range of temporal and cultural contexts. Based on thorough research conducted within a robust theoretical framework, this book produces new insights not only on violence against parents, but on all forms of family violence. This is a rapidly expanding field, and this book will be of interest to social science and humanities scholars, practitioners working in the field of family violence, as well as the more general reader."
Dr. Amanda Holt, Reader in Criminology, University of Roehampton, London.
"The historical focus that runs throughout the book is a huge contributor to the reader's holistic understanding of the issue. With examinations of changes in laws, definitions, societal attitudes and beliefs, professional understandings and theorizing, and culturally broad sources, studies and perspectives the reader is afforded an opportunity to understand issues of parricide and violence against parents more thoroughly and deeply. Parricide and Violence Against Parents is broad in its coverage and delves fairly (but not overly) deep into traits of offenders, victims, and especially socio-historical contexts, as well as showing readers where issues fit within numerous theoretical perspectives. While the book is thick with information, the clear organization of the book facilitates readers both understanding and the progression of ideas. One of the best qualities of Muravyeva, Shon and Toivo's text is that it is written at a level that is accessible to all, yet it maintains theoretical richness and complexity. Readers ranging from simply interested onlookers, to undergraduates to advanced career researchers can and will find Parricide and Violence against Parents to be an accessible, academically rich, holistic examination of a fascinating, under-studied form of crime."
Richard Tewksbury, Ph.D., University of Louisville (Ret.)
