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published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

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Thesis (MA (Psychology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Maternal filicide, the murder of a child by its mother, is a complex phenomenon with various causes and characteristics. Research, by means of the development of several classification systems and in identifying particular risk factors, has been conducted with the aim of better prevention of this emotionally evocative crime. Various disciplines have offered a wide range of perspectives on why women kill their biological children. These are intended to yield a better understanding of the aetiology of this crime. This literature review delineates three dominant perspectives: psychiatric, psychological, and sociological. The main findings of each perspective are discussed. However, these three perspectives frequently operate in conjunction with each other in that both intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics play a role in acts of maternal filicide. The most vulnerable women appear to be those who have had a severely deficient developmental history (trauma and/or grossly inadequate parenting), those who experience current difficult psychosocial circumstances, and those who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness. However, not all women who experience such problems kill their children. In this regard, individual differences have an important role to play and more carefully delineated future research is suggested. One of the most significant findings of this literature review is that there appears to be a paucity of systematic research on the South African phenomenon of parental child homicide. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Moedermoord, die moord van ’n kind deur sy of haar moeder, is ’n komplekse verskynsel met verskeie oorsake en karaktereienskappe. Navorsing deur die ontwikkeling van verskeie klassifikasiestelsels en die identifisering van spesifieke risikofaktore is uitgevoer met die doel om hierdie misdaad, wat soveel emosies ontlok, beter te voorkom. Verskeie dissiplines bied ’n wye verskeidenheid perspektiewe oor die redes waarom vroue hul biologiese kinders vermoor. Die doel van hierdie perspektiewe is om ’n beter etiologiese begrip van hierdie vorm van misdaad te verkry. Die literatuurstudie dui drie dominante perspektiewe aan: psigiatries, psigologies en sosiologies. Die hoofbevindinge van elke perspektief word bespreek. Hierdie drie perspektiewe werk dikwels saam aangesien sowel intrapsigiese en interpersoonlike dinamiek ’n rol in moedermoorddade speel. Die kwesbaarste vroue blyk dié te wees met ’n ernstig gebrekkige ontwikkelingsgeskiedenis (trauma en/of ernstig onvoldoende ouerskap), diegene wat hulle in moeilike psigososiale omstandighede bevind, en dié wat met ’n psigiatriese siekte gediagnoseer is. Nie alle vroue wat hierdie probleme ervaar, vermoor egter hulle kinders nie. In hierdie opsig speel individuele verskille ’n belangrike rol en word versigtig afgebakende toekomstige navorsing voorgestel. Een van die belangrikste bevindinge van hierdie literatuuroorsig is dat daar ’n gebrek aan sistematiese navorsing oor die Suid-Afrikaanse verskynsel van kindermoord deur ouers blyk te wees.

<p>Sexual conflict occurs when female and male fitness interests diverge. In a social system characterized by aggressive sexual coercion and the risk of infanticide, female chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) respond to this conflict by exhibiting an exaggerated sexual swelling that advertises sexual receptivity while concealing the exact timing of ovulation. Sexual swellings impose significant costs, yet can persist into pregnancy. Records from long-term studies of eastern chimpanzees (P. t. schweinfurthii) in Gombe National Park, TZ, and Kibale National Park, UG, provide data on postconception swellings, while data on group composition and behaviors such as mating, grooming, and aggression are drawn from the Gombe database only. Throughout, I use linear mixed models to simultaneously test multiple effects while controlling for repeated measures of individuals. In Chapter 1, I tested whether variation in females’ vulnerability to infanticide and aggression predicted the amount of swelling during pregnancy. In Chapter 2, I examined female-male relationships across reproductive states to ask whether females can better gain benefits and avoid costs by affiliating promiscuously with all males, or by investing in relationships with preferred males. Finally, I analyzed metabolites of reproductive hormones using urine samples from pregnant females in both populations to build a hormonal profile of postconception swellings. Swellings during pregnancy increase female-male association, and are caused by the same basic hormonal mechanism as preconception swellings, though they occur in a very different hormonal milieu. Females at greater risk of infanticide and intrasexual aggression swell more during pregnancy. Females mate promiscuously before conception, but during pregnancy and lactation, preferentially groom with males that are likely to protect them from aggression and infanticide. Based on these and other findings, I conclude that postconception swellings in chimpanzees are an adaptive response to sexual conflict.</p> / Dissertation

<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Many studies have been conducted on infanticide and child homicide. Researchers have approached the subject with different theoretical frameworks and explored it from different dimensions, geographical areas, and time periods. As much as the questions have varied so have the answers. This study contributes to greater clarity on the causes of infanticide. Despite numerous studies on the subject, there is still no consensus its causes. My aim has been to combine different strategies for understanding the subject. I have used material both from an aggregated level and from an individual level. The main question I sought to answer was whether social causes rather than individual factors force or trigger women to kill their newborn child? Court material also provides for an in-depth understanding of our history. The social sciences have frequently drawn sketches of the social world with big lines. These lines have been necessary and useful to point at large-scale transformations of civilisation and modernisation but, in terms of understanding real life, they can provide us with a foggy and even mistaken picture. When social scientists enter the historical archives and similar sources, we often blunder in its richness and variation. Society may, in any case, have always been complicated and the every day life for each person as well.</p><p>My findings show that infanticide signals low tolerance. In general, the women did not want to kill their own children. Moreover, my findings, like the results of other studies before mine, demonstrate that women who carry out infanticide represent normal women. To my knowledge, there isn’t one study on infanticide that claims the women were not normal. Women who committed infanticide did so out of fear: fear of losing their social bonds. They killed their children if the existence of the bonds was endangered or threatened. Often social bonds were related to their work situation as maids in farming households. If they couldn’t stay in the household after having the baby, many women had no where else to go. Their parents – poor, elderly or deceased – were unable to help. Sometimes the social bonds were threatened by other factors, often related to the child’s father. If he was already married or had a close relation with the woman’s family, their relationship could in fact, break her bonds to her own family and other relatives. Some women already had an illegitimate child. With a child out of wedlock, they had a difficult time getting work and housing. If they got pregnant again and the father to the new child refused to marry her or to support the child, she could in fact lack any resources for handling the situation.</p><p>Finally: the findings talk about honour and infanticide. It was always shameful to get a child out of wedlock. But demographic research from North of Sweden has shown that these children had almost the same chances of survival during their first year as legitimate children. Sexuality outside marriage was not respected but much discussion around honour was more related to how the women would manage with the child. In my findings, shame seems to be related to having no support. Extramarital relations were not accepted but people probably didn’t care to much about it as far as they managed on their own. Being rejected, helpless, not able to work and not able to take care of the child that was what shame was about.</p><p>Keywords: Infanticide, child homicide, illegitimacy, social bonds, shame</p>

ABSTRACT Many studies have been conducted on infanticide and child homicide. Researchers have approached the subject with different theoretical frameworks and explored it from different dimensions, geographical areas, and time periods. As much as the questions have varied so have the answers. This study contributes to greater clarity on the causes of infanticide. Despite numerous studies on the subject, there is still no consensus its causes. My aim has been to combine different strategies for understanding the subject. I have used material both from an aggregated level and from an individual level. The main question I sought to answer was whether social causes rather than individual factors force or trigger women to kill their newborn child? Court material also provides for an in-depth understanding of our history. The social sciences have frequently drawn sketches of the social world with big lines. These lines have been necessary and useful to point at large-scale transformations of civilisation and modernisation but, in terms of understanding real life, they can provide us with a foggy and even mistaken picture. When social scientists enter the historical archives and similar sources, we often blunder in its richness and variation. Society may, in any case, have always been complicated and the every day life for each person as well. My findings show that infanticide signals low tolerance. In general, the women did not want to kill their own children. Moreover, my findings, like the results of other studies before mine, demonstrate that women who carry out infanticide represent normal women. To my knowledge, there isn’t one study on infanticide that claims the women were not normal. Women who committed infanticide did so out of fear: fear of losing their social bonds. They killed their children if the existence of the bonds was endangered or threatened. Often social bonds were related to their work situation as maids in farming households. If they couldn’t stay in the household after having the baby, many women had no where else to go. Their parents – poor, elderly or deceased – were unable to help. Sometimes the social bonds were threatened by other factors, often related to the child’s father. If he was already married or had a close relation with the woman’s family, their relationship could in fact, break her bonds to her own family and other relatives. Some women already had an illegitimate child. With a child out of wedlock, they had a difficult time getting work and housing. If they got pregnant again and the father to the new child refused to marry her or to support the child, she could in fact lack any resources for handling the situation. Finally: the findings talk about honour and infanticide. It was always shameful to get a child out of wedlock. But demographic research from North of Sweden has shown that these children had almost the same chances of survival during their first year as legitimate children. Sexuality outside marriage was not respected but much discussion around honour was more related to how the women would manage with the child. In my findings, shame seems to be related to having no support. Extramarital relations were not accepted but people probably didn’t care to much about it as far as they managed on their own. Being rejected, helpless, not able to work and not able to take care of the child that was what shame was about. Keywords: Infanticide, child homicide, illegitimacy, social bonds, shame

Inaug.-Diss.--Kiel. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 83-85.

Madness in women exists as a trope within the literature from the earliest of civilizations. This theme is evident and appears to possess a link with male dysfunction in several of Toni Morrison’s texts. Lack of maternal accountability has long served as a symptom of female mental instability as imposed by patriarchal thought. Mothers who have neglected or harmed their young across cultures and time periods have been forcibly branded with the mark of madness. Female characters in five of Morrison’s novels bear a striking resemblance to the female archetypes of ancient Greece. This paper will demonstrate the kindred strands of prescribed female madness in the women of the myths of ancient Greece and Morrison’s characters as it relates to neglectful mothering and male flight.

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