Very sobering article.
I hope you don't mind me tacking this on to your thread, cheminotte - I had meant to start a thread about it, but we'll end up with two very similar looking ones, and it's a closely related issue:
www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/met-lot-wife-killers-murder-never-crime-passion-believe/ "I've met a lot of wife killers and murder is never a 'crime of passion', believe me", by forensic criminologist Jane Monckton-Smith.
It's behind a pay-wall, so here's a small extract as a taster (hope this is okay):
She writes about "Roger", a pseudonym for one of the murderers she interviewed in a professional capacity, pointing out that he was the sort of man the neighbours would describe as nice, and unassuming, and only capable of murder in a fit of temporary madness - exactly the defence Roger tried to use.
"Because murdering your partner is so incomprehensibly cruel, we have rationalised the killing of wives with reference to the idea of a ‘crime of passion’. This neatly explains the seemingly inexplicable. It encourages us to believe that men might kill their lovers, or spouses, in spontaneous fits of grief or rage because they 'love them so much'. Similarly, we can believe that men who routinely beat their partners might one day 'take it too far'; death may be the result, even if it was not intended.
"But Roger had planned the murder of his wife. This was not a spontaneous crime, and neither did Roger have a history of beating his wife. So is Roger the exception that proves the rule? Not at all. I’ve met a lot of murderers and Roger is most certainly your average wife killer."
(Usual Telegraph disclaimer - do not read the BTL comments, unless you feel like swimming around in a cesspit of misogyny that will make you despair of the male sex.)