‘In His Passionate Way’: Emotion, Race and Gender in Cases of Partner Murder in England and Wales, 1900–39

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines 10 capital cases of men of colour sentenced to death in England and Wales for intimate murders of white British women during 1900–39. It argues that such cases enable analysis of the prevailing emotional norms of this era and the ways in which these were shaped by race, gender and class. Perceptions of intimate relationships as legitimate or illegitimate—judgments about who should feel what about whom—‘is’ related to understandings of citizenship. In revealing the emotional norms at play in cases of murder, it is possible to illustrate how the criminal justice system governed through emotion.