Definition
The killing of a wife by her husband. The term also refers to the person who commits such an act — that is, a husband who murders his wife. Uxorcide is not a technical term of criminal law and carries no distinct legal definition, elements, or charge. It functions instead as a descriptive or classificatory label, most often appearing in legal scholarship, criminological writing, and historical legal texts rather than in statutes, indictments, or court opinions.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The murder of one's wife; a man who murders his wife.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately entered; the term was uncommon in general usage.
The common and legal meanings are essentially the same here — both refer to a husband killing his wife. The relevant gap is not between common and legal meaning but between the term's apparent formality and its actual legal standing: despite its Latin construction and clinical precision, uxorcide has never been a cognizable criminal charge. It describes a fact pattern, not an offense.
Common Confusion
Uxorcide is sometimes loosely grouped with terms like parricide, infanticide, or fratricide as though all share the same legal status. They do not. Some jurisdictions have codified parricide or infanticide as distinct statutory offenses with specific elements or sentencing consequences. Uxorcide has not received comparable statutory treatment anywhere in the Anglo-American tradition. A researcher encountering the term in a legal source should treat it as descriptive language, not as a charge or cause of action.
Why It Matters in Research
Uxorcide appears rarely in primary legal sources — statutes, indictments, and case reporters — because it is not a cognizable offense. When it surfaces in historical legal texts or treatises, it is functioning as a classificatory or rhetorical label, not a term of art. Researchers working in domestic homicide, intimate partner violence, or criminal law history should not expect to find uxorcide as a charged offense; the underlying conduct would be prosecuted as murder or manslaughter under general homicide statutes.
The term is more frequently encountered in criminological literature, legal history scholarship, and social science research on domestic violence than in doctrinal legal writing. A corpus search turning up uxorcide in a legal dictionary or treatise context is likely referencing taxonomy, not a distinct legal rule.
Researchers tracing the history of marital violence law should note that the legal treatment of a husband killing his wife has shifted dramatically over time. Older common law doctrines — including the now-abolished rule that a husband could not be convicted of raping his wife — reflected a framework that treated the marital relationship as limiting criminal liability in ways that no longer apply. Uxorcide as a label exists in part because the underlying conduct occupied a legally ambiguous space for much of common law history.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary states plainly that uxorcide is "not a technical term of the law," a characterization that remains accurate. Bouvier's entry is notable for its brevity and its explicit disclaimer of legal status — unusual for a law dictionary entry, and instructive precisely because it signals that the term's presence in a legal dictionary reflects descriptive completeness rather than doctrinal significance. No historical legal dictionary in the Anglo-American tradition treats uxorcide as a distinct offense with defined elements or procedural consequences. The term's Latin roots lend it a formal appearance that its legal standing does not support.
Jurisdictional Note
No jurisdiction in the Anglo-American tradition has codified uxorcide as a distinct criminal offense. The underlying conduct is charged under general homicide statutes, and any aggravating circumstances related to the domestic relationship are addressed through sentencing enhancements or domestic violence provisions rather than through a separate uxorcide charge.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Homicide — for the general criminal law framework under which uxorcide is actually prosecuted.
Domestic Violence — for the legal and historical treatment of intimate partner violence, including legislative developments that shaped criminal liability within marriage.