Uma história de violência em relação conjugal - Santarém-PA (1941)

Abstract

This article analyzes violence in marital relationships from a crime that occurred in Santarém, Pará, in 1941. Through micro-history as a methodology, the research was based on a criminal process that narrates the murder committed by a man who murdered wife. In the case file, his defense tried to argue that the defendant was "under disturbance of the senses" in the act, however, the penal code of 1940 brought several changes related to criminal responsibility in passionate cases, which put into dispute the view of more progressive legal agents against conservatives on the argument of “violent emotion” and the control of female behavior. Thus, the speeches present in the testimonies and the decisions of the legal agents reveal a discussion that had been taking place in the national context when it came to violence in a marital relationship and how the penal code still maintained subterfuges that legitimized violence against women.