Honor Killing - Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary Psychology

Several different evolutionary psychology explanations have been proposed for honor killings. Honor killings, as well as the related concept of crime of passion due to adultery, have occurred and have to some degree been seen as justified in many different and separated cultures. Theories referring to the influence of the patriarchy in general may have difficulty explaining why men are more likely to kill women for reasons related to adultery rather than for reasons such as laziness or stupidity. General patriarchal theories may also have difficulty explaining why societies have made particular legal exceptions for killings related to adultery. This may be explained by men, unlike women, have difficulty knowing with certainty that they are the biological parents of the children they spend considerable resources on in a long-term relationship. Sexual jealousy is argued to have evolved in order to reduce the risk of children not being biologically related and to be relatively stronger in men. Men may use a variety of strategies, including physical violence, in order to prevent adultery. Actual killings have been argued to be maladaptive by-products of this since by killing the woman she cannot contribute further to the man's reproductive success. However, it has also been argued that the such killings may be adaptive by being a warning to other wives, restoring lost social status, and preventing complications from possibly not genetically related children being born. These adaptive explanations have been criticized for less extreme violence possibly achieving the same thing or involving unlikely complex calculations. It has also been pointed out that to argue that society must morally accept and be structured according to what is claimed to be natural, such as by legal exceptions for honor killings or crimes of passion, is an example of the naturalistic fallacy.