# Treatment of unfaithful wives in Brazil



## LaReinita

Someone told me that if a woman is unfaithful to her husband in Brazil that he can hurt/kill her without consequence, because of the whole machismo thing.  Hopefully, this is just a bunch of garbage, but I felt compelled to ask anyway!


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## Hakro

Did you really believe it could be true?


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## LaReinita

It could have been true at one point.  Hell, still could be.  How would I know?  I'm very far away and plenty of things happen in other places that I don't understand, and probably never will.  Just a question, no need to get our panties in a bunch.


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## cuchuflete

Why limit the question to Brasil?


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## LaReinita

Well, simply because that was what I was told. He didn't say any other country. But if it DID happen there, I'm sure it probably happen elsewhere also. My friend insists that it goes on, or at least did not too long ago. This is why I'm asking. I didn't originally believe that something like that could still go on today, but then I thought . . "What the hell do I know about Brazil?"

I just found this:

In two Latin American countries, similar laws were struck down over the past two decades: according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives. Similarly, in Colombia, until 1980, a husband legally could kill his wife for committing adultery."[32] 


This is crazy!!!  So I imagine that it is severly punishable now to do that, right?


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## Dom Casmurro

LaReinita said:


> according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'


Thank you, Reinita, for shedding light on this issue. Of course, wife killing is a monstrosity, we all agree on that, but fortunately, unlike what the human rights lawyer was quoted to say, such killings in Brazil have _never_ been "considered to be noncriminal 'honor killing'", before or after 1991. We will never know the reason why Ms. Jullie Mertus perpetrated such a lie - or, if she didn't, we will never know what led Wikipedia to misquote her - but one thing is for certain: whoever is responsible for such a flippancy will _never_ be prosecuted. This, in my opinion, is another monstrosity. A minor one, if compared to wife killings. Anyway, when it comes to this kind of crime, we can take relief in the fact that wife killers, at least in Brazil, are subject to prosecution.


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## Outsider

But I do remember hearing that during the rightwing dictatorship such killings were somewhat excused... I don't know if they were legal.

Needless to say, they are now absolutely illegal.


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## alacant

Thank you, Dom,

For stamping on that one, a lot of nonsense is put about regarding machismo in Latin Countries.

Best regards, Alacant


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## CarolMamkny

LaReinita said:


> I just found this:
> 
> In two Latin American countries, similar laws were struck down over the past two decades: according to human rights lawyer Julie Mertus "in Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'; in just one year, nearly eight hundred husbands killed their wives. Similarly, in Colombia, until 1980, a husband legally could kill his wife for committing adultery."[32]


 
 What? Where did you find this? What justifies such a statement? I have *never* heard of a thing like this being legal in Colombia or Brazil. This is just Bull....


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## cuchuflete

The quote comes from the Wikipedia article on Honor Killings.
It cites a source:

 CONCEPTUALIZING PRIVATE     VIOLENCE AGAINST SEXUAL MINORITIES AS GENDERED VIOLENCE: AN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE     LAW PERSPECTIVE        
      JAMES D. WILETS  link



That paper sites yet another source:

11_Id_. at 140-41 (citing James Brooke, _Honor Killing of Wives is Outlawed in Brazil_, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 29,     1991, at B16; Magdala Velasquez Toro, _Columbia: Legal Gains for Women_, _in_ EMPOWERMENT AND THE LAW:     STRATEGIES OF THIRD WORLD WOMEN 71, 73 (Margaret Schuler ed., 1986)).

Here is the NY Times text, which makes clear that Julie Mertus took some very substantial liberties with the facts:



> By JAMES BROOKE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
> Published: March 29, 1991
> Brazil's Supreme Court has ruled that a man can no longer kill his wife and win acquittal on the ground of "legitimate defense of honor."
> ... "It's a historic decision," said Jacqueline Pitanguy, a Brazilian women's rights leader.
> Although *never part of the legal code of Brazil*, the "defense of honor" strategy has been used by lawyers to win acquittals in thousands of cases of men on trial for murdering their wives. According to a study in Sao Paulo State for the period 1980-81, 722 men claimed defense of their honor as justification for killing women accused of adultery.


_emphasis added

source:
click

The entire article suggests that, while there was no statutory legal basis for the 'honor killing' defense, it was widely used in Brazil prior to the supreme court ruling.  That ruling itself was a split decision, with two of the five judges voting against the
verdict.   This all suggests that (1) There was no law permitting killing of wives for adultery in Brazil; (2)despite the lack of legal basis, many men who murdered their wives used 'honor' as a defense, often successfully winning acquittals on this basis; (3) Things have changed substantially since 1991.
_


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## palomnik

I suspect that this may stem from an overly literal reading of Jorge Amado's _Gabriela.  _A great book, by the way.


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## Dom Casmurro

Thank you Cuchuflete. Good job.

Let's read again what Ms. Julie Mertus is quoted to have said, according to Wikipedia: "In Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'". 

The amount of bias that is behind those words is overwhelmingly obvious to me. I have just googled under "Julie Mertus", and found out that she is a respectful law professor, with some praiseworthy achievements to her credit. I simply cannot believe that a person with her profile could utter such words. It's really hard to believe that she would be able to have an academic carrer if she went around disseminating opinions like that. I mean that, truly. So, if Ms. Mertus is to be 'acquitted', the blame, in my humble judgment, should be placed on Wikipedia.


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## cuchuflete

This article, with no date, but apparently from 1995 or later, provides additiional information on the topic.  I have no way to verify its accuracy.

http://hrw.org/about/projects/womrep/General-187.htm


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## Vanda

C'mon guys, this does not have to do with unfaithfulness, not more than in any other macho country. It has to do with drugs, alcohol, jealousy, violence, unemployment and things like that. It could be true in a long past, not anymore. We have a special Delegacia de Proteção à Mulher (DPM)

Here it is the most recent federal law (in our Constitution) about special protection to women in cases of violence.


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## cuchuflete

What would happen to the French presidency if adultery were punishable by death?
The presidency of the US?  The royal family in the U.K.?

Vanda is absolutely correct.  It's more about male ego than unfaithfulness.


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## Macunaíma

The _*Delegacia de Proteção à Mulher*_ does a wonderful job in defending women against domestic violence and their work is always on TV, including in soap operas, where they try to encourage women to report on aggressive and threatening behaviour from their partners. They also offer psychological assistence to women victims of domestic violence. Violence against women is *definitely not* tolerated by the law in Brazil nor by the mentality of the *overwhelming* majority of Brazilians.


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## LaReinita

Well that is good to know.  No woman should be abused in any way shape or form, no person for that matter.  Maybe it was never a "noncriminal act" but it seems as though backs were certainly turned to ignore what was happening.  Whatever was going on, I'm glad to hear it's been abolished.


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## Dom Casmurro

LaReinita said:


> Whatever was going on, I'm glad to hear it's been abolished.


Things that never existed cannot be abolished, by definition. I'm afraid you might be missing the point, Reinita. What is at stake here is that someone has stated that in a certain country, wife killings were, until 1991, considered to be noncriminal killings. What amazes me is the fact that those absurd words were uttered in a rather casual way, as if implying, "What else can we expect from _that_ country?" In a word, what scares me is the bias barely hidden in all that. On the other hand, I, as a national of that country, am not comfortable about people out there who not only give credit to that information, but also disseminate it. The very existence of such people is not to be taken lightly. This is what really matters here, from my point of view. Please don't be mad at me. I am just trying to stress the gravity of a particular issue that you might have overlooked.


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## LaReinita

So all of the different articles and sources are completely false? If shady things were going on and the government was ignoring such things, do you think they would tell everybody about it every time it happened? And if you read my last post completely, you would see that I clearly said that maybe it was never considered a "noncriminal act," but "whatever" was going on . . . I'm glad it's over.


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## Outsider

Since the Brazilian government never endorsed honor killings, in fact they were against the law, then Ms. Mertus should not say that they were "considered to be noncriminal". That's simply a falsehood.

I'm sure that none of us likes to see negative falsehoods about their country stated as a matter of fact by prominent foreign academics. Scientists should be responsible and do their homework when they write about foreign societies which they do not know. They should be at least as precise as they are when they write about their own society, which they know -- not more sloppy and stereotype-friendly.


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## Dom Casmurro

I'll give you a piece-by-piece reply - very much in the Jack the Stripper way.  (By the way, wasn't he a notorious woman killer? He would probably feel very much at ease in Brazil.) 


LaReinita said:


> So all of the different articles and sources are completely false?


No. I just pointed out that a certain article found in Wikipedia contains a sentence that is completely false. The sentence is: "In Brazil, until 1991 wife killings were considered to be noncriminal 'honor killings'". That is not accurate, to put it mildly. 


LaReinita said:


> If shady things were going on


 From a judicial point of view, no shady things went on concerning wife killings. You might choose to take a look at post #10 above, by Cuchuflete, and click on the links therein, to have a whole picture of what happened before 1991. Basically, we are talking about smart lawyers who would take advantage of the machismo that was occasionally predominant among members of the jury to convince them that wife killings were "passional crimes" committed in defense of the defendants' honor. They didn't do so in a "shady" way, as due process of law was never violated. All they did was find legitimate means to cleverly steer their causes through the meanders of the law. The 1991 ruling by the Supreme Court prohibited them from making use of the "honor killing" line of argument. 


LaReinita said:


> and the government was ignoring such things,


It was not up to the government (executive branch) to have a say on that. The courts (judicial branch), which in Brazil as well as in the US are independent from the government, are the only ones to decide upon such cases. 


LaReinita said:


> do you think they would tell everybody about it every time it happened?


I am sorry, I'm afraid I can't follow you on that. Who are "they"? And, if you don't mind clarifying, what are "they" supposed not to be telling everybody about?


LaReinita said:


> And if you read my last post completely, you would see that I clearly said that maybe it was never considered a "noncriminal act," but "whatever" was going on . . . I'm glad it's over.


You certainly made a point here. Please understand, though, that all my remarks concern one and no more than one sentence (the one appearing in Wikipedia), which from my point of view is dramatically important as it reveals a great amount of flippancy in the way this story is told. I would have preferred that you tackled that particular aspect of my concerns, but I fully respect your having chosen not to. Nonetheless, my concern remains, and it is fully justified by this post of yours:


LaReinita said:


> It could have been true at one point. Hell, still could be. How would I know? I'm very far away and plenty of things happen in other places that I don't understand, and probably never will. Just a question, no need to get our panties in a bunch.


Well, I tried to answer your question, and since this is not a minor issue, I hope you will understand that, while not calling for getting anybody's panties in a bunch, this is not to be taken lightly.

Cheers!


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## Chaska Ñawi

This thread seems to have run its course.  If anybody wishes to start a new thread on legal penalties for domestic violence or infidelity, they may do so, but should review the cultural guidelines carefully while they choose their wording.


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