Parricide (Latin: parricida, killer of parents or another close relative) is defined as:

• The act of killing one's father (patricide),^[1] or less usually one's mother (matricide)^[2] or some other close relative, but usually not children (infanticide).^[3]


• The act of killing a person (such as the ruler of one's country) who stands in a relationship resembling that of a father^[4]


• A person who commits such an act^[5]


• A related adjective ("parricide treason", "parricide brothers")^[6]

Historical cases[edit]

This article gives self-sourcing examples without describing their significance in the context of the article. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources that describe the examples' significance, and by removing less pertinent examples. Unsourced or poorly sourced material may be challenged or removed. (January 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

• 
  Tullia the Younger, along with her husband, arranged the murder and overthrow of her father, securing the throne for her husband.


• Lucius Hostius reportedly was the first patricide in Rome, sometime after the Second Punic War.


• 
  Mary Blandy (1720–1752) poisoned her father, Francis Blandy, with arsenic in England in 1751.


• 
  Lizzie Borden (1860–1927) was an American woman accused and acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother.


• The Criminal Code of Japan once determined that patricide brought capital punishment or life imprisonment. However, the law was abolished because of the trial of the Tochigi patricide case in which a woman killed her father in 1968 after she was sexually abused by him and bore their children.

Legal definition in Roman times[edit]

In the sixth century CE collection of earlier juristical sayings, the Digest, a precise enumeration of the victims' possible relations to the parricide is given by the 3rd century CE lawyer Modestinus:

By the lex Pompeia on parricides it is laid down that if anyone kills his father, his mother, his grandfather, his grandmother, his brother, his sister, first cousin on his father's side, first cousin on his mother's side, paternal or maternal uncle, paternal (or maternal) aunt, first cousin (male or female) by mother's sister, wife, husband, father-in-law, son-in-law, mother-in-law, (daughter-in-law), stepfather, stepson, stepdaughter, patron, or patroness, or with malicious intent brings this about, shall be liable to the same penalty as that of the lex Cornelia on murderers. And a mother who kills her son or daughter suffers the penalty of the same statute, as does a grandfather who kills a grandson; and in addition, a person who buys poison to give to his father, even though he is unable to administer it.^[7]

Gallery[edit]

• 
  

  

  
  

  
  

  Tullia drives over the corpse of her Father
  

  
  

  
  


• 
  

  

  
  

  
  

  Parricide, capital punishment in Jersey
  

  
  

  
  

See also[edit]

• 
  Avunculicide, the killing of one's uncle


• 
  Filicide, the killing of one's child


• 
  Fratricide, the killing of one's brother


• 
  Mariticide, the killing of one's husband


• 
  Nepoticide, the killing of one's nephew


• 
  Patricide, the killing of one's father


• 
  Matricide, the killing of one's mother


• 
  Prolicide, the killing of one's offspring


• 
  Sororicide, the killing of one's sister


• 
  Uxoricide, the killing of one's wife


• 
  Feminicide, the killing of a woman

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Look up parricide in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Dictionary.com entry for parricide
  


• Pendulum Foundation: Parricide Facts