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Authors: Harold Robbins
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smoothly. “What has been stretched out is how long the provocation has existed. To understand why provocation can take place over a period of years, we have to look at the unique relationship between husband and wife, and the differences between men and women.
“Spouses are not feuding neighbors who come into occasional contact with each other, dancing with someone else’s wife at the local bar, a couple guys rubbing each other the wrong way on the street, or a hundred other possible situations. People in a marriage are bound together—and sometimes a marriage can be turned into a prison. I don’t want this to come across as sexist, but in most marriages that have turned into prisons, the man is the jailer and the wife the inmate because the man commonly controls the family finances and has greater physical strength.”
“You will not find that that theory plays as well here as it does across the pond,” Helen Catters, the divorce lawyer, said. “Britain is behind many countries in terms of the advances of women in society. Male jurors are apt to get offended if you start characterizing them as prison wardens. You need to know, too, that the battered-woman theory has not yet been accepted as a separate diagnosis by either our courts or our medical profession.”
Marlowe smiled. Dumb bitch. “The idea isn’t to antagonize male jurors, but to get them on the defendant’s side by showing the bad things other men do, things that they wouldn’t do in their own marriage and would offend them.”
“Do you find male or female jurors more sympathetic to your theories?” McMann, the psychiatrist, asked.
“Generally men are more sympathetic to a woman’s plight, female jurors are more critical. But it’s an issue that will have to be studied when we start considering the unique social and political elements of this case.”
“I’d like to hear more about your theory,” Trent said.
Marlowe nodded. “This may sound like a simplistic model in a society in which so many women work outside the home, but statistics show the aggressive dictators of family life are more likely to be the husbands than the wives. And that a large number of the heat of passion killings by women of their husbands arise out of marriages in which the woman is a financial and physical prisoner. Most of the killings also involve the woman having suffered physical abuse from her boyfriend or husband. Mental abuse can come from either side, but again, the cases turning violent are much more likely to involve physical abuse of the female by the male, if for no other reason than men are physically stronger and more likely to inflict serious injuries on the other person. Thus most killings by women commonly arise out of situations in which the women are trapped in relationships with physically abusive and financially dominant men. It seems to be the nature of human beings that with power comes the abuse of power.”
“So your strategy rather vilifies the male,” McMann said.
“No, my strategy is to get the jurors to understand what the perpetrator went through that caused them to lash out violently. If it’s a wife who was beaten and humiliated, and if it makes the deceased husband look bad, then the man had vilified himself without any help from me.”
“But there is a focus on showing bad acts by the deceased?” Trent asked.
“Yes. Obviously, most heat-of-passion cases arising from marital relationships involve wives who have suffered physical and mental abuse over a period of years, and who are—or feel they are—trapped in a relationship with a physically and financially stronger male. At some point the trapped, beaten animal strikes back.”
Lord Finfall scoffed. “Such tripe.”
Marlowe smiled, but her eyes were stone cold as she turned to the retired jurist. “Perhaps if you were beaten and raped repeatedly by a dominant male in a prison setting, you might have more understanding and empathy for what a battered spouse
“Spouses are not feuding neighbors who come into occasional contact with each other, dancing with someone else’s wife at the local bar, a couple guys rubbing each other the wrong way on the street, or a hundred other possible situations. People in a marriage are bound together—and sometimes a marriage can be turned into a prison. I don’t want this to come across as sexist, but in most marriages that have turned into prisons, the man is the jailer and the wife the inmate because the man commonly controls the family finances and has greater physical strength.”
“You will not find that that theory plays as well here as it does across the pond,” Helen Catters, the divorce lawyer, said. “Britain is behind many countries in terms of the advances of women in society. Male jurors are apt to get offended if you start characterizing them as prison wardens. You need to know, too, that the battered-woman theory has not yet been accepted as a separate diagnosis by either our courts or our medical profession.”
Marlowe smiled. Dumb bitch. “The idea isn’t to antagonize male jurors, but to get them on the defendant’s side by showing the bad things other men do, things that they wouldn’t do in their own marriage and would offend them.”
“Do you find male or female jurors more sympathetic to your theories?” McMann, the psychiatrist, asked.
“Generally men are more sympathetic to a woman’s plight, female jurors are more critical. But it’s an issue that will have to be studied when we start considering the unique social and political elements of this case.”
“I’d like to hear more about your theory,” Trent said.
Marlowe nodded. “This may sound like a simplistic model in a society in which so many women work outside the home, but statistics show the aggressive dictators of family life are more likely to be the husbands than the wives. And that a large number of the heat of passion killings by women of their husbands arise out of marriages in which the woman is a financial and physical prisoner. Most of the killings also involve the woman having suffered physical abuse from her boyfriend or husband. Mental abuse can come from either side, but again, the cases turning violent are much more likely to involve physical abuse of the female by the male, if for no other reason than men are physically stronger and more likely to inflict serious injuries on the other person. Thus most killings by women commonly arise out of situations in which the women are trapped in relationships with physically abusive and financially dominant men. It seems to be the nature of human beings that with power comes the abuse of power.”
“So your strategy rather vilifies the male,” McMann said.
“No, my strategy is to get the jurors to understand what the perpetrator went through that caused them to lash out violently. If it’s a wife who was beaten and humiliated, and if it makes the deceased husband look bad, then the man had vilified himself without any help from me.”
“But there is a focus on showing bad acts by the deceased?” Trent asked.
“Yes. Obviously, most heat-of-passion cases arising from marital relationships involve wives who have suffered physical and mental abuse over a period of years, and who are—or feel they are—trapped in a relationship with a physically and financially stronger male. At some point the trapped, beaten animal strikes back.”
Lord Finfall scoffed. “Such tripe.”
Marlowe smiled, but her eyes were stone cold as she turned to the retired jurist. “Perhaps if you were beaten and raped repeatedly by a dominant male in a prison setting, you might have more understanding and empathy for what a battered spouse
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