Killer Mothers: The Legal Construction of Infanticide and Honor in Mexico in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

This article examines the legal conceptualization of infanticide—the murder of a newborn—in Mexico from the colonial period through its repeal in 1994, highlighting its roots in the construction of the liberal patriarchal state. The 1871 Federal Penal Code first defined infanticide as a distinct crime, linking it to female sexual honor and differentiating legal protection based on the newborn's legitimacy, a framework that persisted with minor changes in subsequent codes until abolition. Throughout this period, judicial practice often showed leniency toward mothers who killed illegitimate newborns to conceal dishonor, reflecting societal and legal values that prioritized male legitimate inheritance and upheld patriarchal ideals of motherhood and female sexuality. Social attitudes, however, increasingly condemned infanticide as a violation of maternal nature, while feminist and human rights movements in the late twentieth century challenged traditional notions of honor and motherhood, culminating in the 1994 repeal of infanticide as a separate offense and its incorporation into broader homicide laws. The study underscores how evolving social and political transformations, rather than judicial reform alone, drove the legal abolition of infanticide, marking a significant shift in Mexico's patriarchal legal order.