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Suicide as Social Control1

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DOI: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2011.01308.x

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Sociological Forum, Vol. 27, No. 1, March 2012
DOI: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2011.01308.x

Suicide as Social Control1

Jason Manning2

Suicide may be moralistic in nature—a response to conduct the perpetrator defines as deviant. Moral-
istic suicide can be explained with a general theory of social control. Donald Black’s theories of
social control explain the handling of grievances with their social structure—or geometry—as defined
by the social characteristics and relationships of those involved in a conflict. Here I draw on Black’s
paradigm of pure sociology and theories of social control to identify the social structure of moralistic
suicide. For example, moralistic suicide varies directly with social closeness and is greater in an
upward direction than in a downward direction. This theory is simple, general, testable, and
explains variation not addressed by previous theories of suicide.

KEY WORDS: conflict; protest; pure sociology; social control; suicide; violence.

INTRODUCTION

In a now classic paper, Donald Black (1983) argued that much of the
conduct regarded as crime in modern society is, at the same time, social con-
trol. That is, actions such as assault, homicide, theft, and property destruction
may be ways of punishing or otherwise expressing disapproval toward another
party. Subsequent work has built on this idea, exploring the moralistic nature
of behaviors that are usually considered deviant in their own right, including
employee theft (Tucker, 1989), collective violence (Senechal de la Roche, 1996,
1997), terrorism (Black, 2004a), and genocide (Campbell, 2009, 2010).
The primary importance of this line of work lies in its contribution to a
general theory of social control. Social control, as defined by Black, is any
action that ‘‘defines and responds to deviant behavior’’ (Black, 1976:105). It is
synonymous with the term ‘‘conflict management,’’ and refers to any way in

1
A previous version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Socio-
logical Association, Las Vegas, Nevada, August 20–23. The article also received the 2010–2011
Bierstedt Prize given by the Sociology Department at the University of Virginia. I thank Donald
Black, Rae Lesser Blumberg, Mark Cooney, Elizabeth Nalepa, James Tucker, and the anony-
mous reviewers for comments on earlier drafts.
2
Division of Sociology and Anthropology, West Virginia University, 307 Knapp Hall, P.O. Box
6326, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506-6326; e-mail: jason.manning@mail.wvu.edu.

207

 2012 Eastern Sociological Society

208 Manning

which grievances are expressed and handled (Black, 1998:Ch. 5). Major forms
of social control include avoidance (curtailment of interaction, such as
divorce), self-help (aggression, ranging from criticism to execution), settlement
(resort to a neutral third party such as a mediator or a judge), negotiation
(working toward a mutual agreement), and toleration (as when one chooses to
‘‘let it slide’’) (Black, 1998:Ch. 5). The concept of social control thus contains
a wide variety of behaviors, many of which sociologists normally classify as
distinct subjects belonging to disparate specialties (see Black, 1998:xiii–xxi).
But the concept also cuts across conventional categories. Crime, for example,
is divided into acts that are also social control, such as an assault arising from
a dispute, and those, such as the sale of illegal drugs, that belong to a different
family of social life (Black, 1983; Cooney, 2006).3
As with other kinds of deviance, suicide may be a way of expressing
grievances. To this extent, it can be explained with a theory of social control.
The central task of a theory of social control is to explain why, given that a
conflict occurs, it is handled in one way and not another (Black, 1998:Ch. 1).
To this end, Black has formulated a number of theories specifying the social
conditions that encourage various forms and varieties of social control. The
independent variables in these theories include the degree of inequality, inti-
macy, and diversity among the parties in the conflict.4 Other sociologists have
also made contributions to this body of theory (Campbell, 2009; Horwitz,
1982; Senechal de la Roche, 1996). In the following pages, I apply Black’s the-
oretical strategy to the explanation of suicide and present a general theory that
explains when social control will take the form of self-destruction. This theory
not only extends our ability to predict and explain social control, but also
addresses variation ignored by previous theories of suicide.

SUICIDE

Suicide is the self-application of lethal violence. This definition is an ideal type,

and any statements about suicide in the following pages are assumed to apply,
to greater or lesser extent, to failed attempts, threats, and suicides involving a
degree of assistance or coercion by other parties.
Emile Durkheim’s (1951) famous study effectively founded the sociology
of suicide and continues to be highly influential in the field. Most sociological
studies follow Durkheim’s method of comparing the suicide rates of collectivi-
ties (such as countries, states, and cities) or of kinds of individual (such as
males and females or Catholics and Protestants). To explain variation in such
rates, Durkheim posited four social conditions that encourage suicide: very

3
Similarly, Black (2004b) distinguishes violence that is social control—moralistic violence, such as
the lynching of an alleged rapist—from recreational, ritualistic, or predatory violence (see also
Cooney and Phillips, 2002).
4
Black’s explanatory strategy is discussed in more detail below.
Suicide as Social Control 209

low social integration, very high social integration, very low moral regulation,
and very high moral regulation. Most sociological studies focus on the first of
these conditions, and many confirm that individuals with few or weak social
ties—such as the unmarried, childless, and those not involved in organized
religion—are more likely to commit suicide (see, e.g., Danigelis and Pope,
1979; Kposowa, 2000; Maris, 1981:111–115). Likewise, the suicide rates of col-
lectivities vary with aggregate measures of social integration, such as rates of
divorce, residential mobility, and church membership (see, e.g., Breault, 1986;
Wasserman, 1984).5
Because sociologists tend to focus on rates, they often treat suicide as a
homogenous phenomenon. However, an examination of concrete suicide cases
described in the psychiatric, historical, and ethnographic literature reveals that
the sociological nature of suicide varies from case to case. Some suicides are
clearly acts of altruism—a way of helping others. For example, Eskimo
fathers sometimes kill themselves to bring supernatural aid to severely ill sons
(Leighton and Hughes, 1955:344). Other suicides occur when one person fol-
lows another into the afterlife, as when a South African woman asphyxiated
herself and her children because her husband could ‘‘not live without us in
heaven’’ (Graser, 1992:58–59). And still other suicides are instances of social
control.

MORALISTIC SUICIDE

Moralistic suicide is any suicidal behavior that expresses or handles a

grievance, whether the act is one of protest, punishment, appeal, atonement,
or avoidance. The concept of moralistic suicide overlaps with existing concepts
in the suicide literature. Several scholars have recognized as distinctive types
suicides involving vengeance, aggression, or appeal (Douglas, 1967:Ch. 17;
Jeffries, 1952; Maris, 1981:291; Taylor, 1982:Ch. 8)—categories that fall within
the more general concept of social control. Several anthropologists have also
discussed suicide as a kind of conflict management, including Koch (1974:75),
Counts (1980, 1987), Johnson (1981), and Brown (1986). Within Blackian soci-
ology, M. P. Baumgartner (1984:328–330, see also 1988:34–35) first discussed
suicide and self-injury as acts of social control, noting their similarity to con-
flict tactics such as running away, appealing for help from third parties, and
withholding labor. Black himself (1998:66, 80–82) has also briefly discussed
the classification of suicide as social control. In the current section, I draw on
and extend this previous work by describing moralistic suicide and the kinds
of evidence by which it may be identified.

5
Coroners and medical examiners tend to classify ambiguous deaths as accident rather than
suicide, so that official rates are likely underestimates (see, e.g., Timmermans, 2005). However,
there is no evidence that such underestimates are commonly biased in a way that would
invalidate known patterns of suicide (see, e.g., Sainsbury and Jenkins, 1982).
210 Manning

Suicide may be classified as social control whenever there is evidence it is

a reaction to grievances against another party. The statements made by the
suicidal person are one source of evidence. For example, in the following
suicide note from a male victim in Los Angeles, the act is clearly treated as
something inflicted on an offender:
Jane: You 25¢ chippy I hope this makes you happy. All the time that you could spent
[sic] here and you had to be shacked up with someone else. Now you tell me to get the
hell out from the bar. You have brought this on your self …. (quoted in Farberow and
Shneidman, 1957:43)

Perhaps most highly and explicitly moralistic are those who kill themselves in
acts of political protest, stating their grievances in speeches, letters, and mani-
festos. One of the most famous cases of protest suicide in recent history
occurred in Vietnam on June 11, 1963, when Buddhist monk Thich Quang
Duc burned himself to death to protest the Vietnamese government’s anti-
Buddhist policies (Biggs, 2005:172).6 Before his death, Quang Duc wrote, ‘‘I
have the honour to present my words to President Diem, asking him to be
kind and tolerant towards his people and enforce a policy of religious equal-
ity’’ (Biggs, 2005:172). Some who attempt suicide in response to more inti-
mate, individualized conflicts also speak of their behaviors as acts of protest
or appeal to another party (Taylor, 1982:183–184).
Even in the absence of explicit statements, we can infer the moralistic
nature of suicide from its association with an interpersonal dispute. These
may be cases in which the victim has previously complained about another
or has been the target of acts generally recognized as offensive in that setting.
For example, suicide sometimes follows the discovery of romantic infidelity
(see, e.g., Holmes and Holmes, 2005:16). Others kill themselves after being
verbally or physically assaulted (see, e.g., Counts, 1980, 1987). Even offenses
that seem trivial to an outsider might lead to suicide. In contemporary Mi-
cronesia, for example, young males may be pushed to suicide by what most
people would consider minor slights, as when a 16-year-old youth hanged
himself after being refused $1 by his father (Rubinstein, 1983:660).
Moralism is also apparent when self-killers take steps to maximize the
impact that their deaths will have on others. Those using suicide as a tactic of
protest or appeal often structure their acts so as to attract maximum attention
and sympathy, such as by committing suicide in public places and choosing
dramatic and painful methods like burning. Others take action to ensure their
death will harm an opponent. For example, one man left letters that explicitly
and repeatedly blamed his wife and brother, who were having an affair, for
his death:
The letters he left showed plainly the suicide’s desire to bring unpleasant notoriety upon
his brother and his wife, and to attract attention to himself. In them he described his
shattered romance and advised reporters to see a friend to whom he had forwarded

6
More recently, public self-burnings have spurred popular uprisings in several Arab Muslim
nations, including Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria.
Suicide as Social Control 211

diaries for further details. The first sentence in a special message to his wife read:
‘‘I used to love you; but I die hating you and my brother, too.’’ (Dublin and Bunzel,
quoted in Douglas, 1967:311–312)

Suicide can impose a wide variety of sanctions on those left behind. The
aggrieved may, as in the case described above, inflict guilt and shame. Among
the Tikopia of Polynesia, suicide frequently occurs when ‘‘the person feels
himself or herself offended and frustrated, and flounces off in a rage, often
hurling back some pointed ‘last words’ to make the survivors regretful’’ (Firth,
1967:128). Many survivors of suicide attempts in modern Europe cite wanting
another to feel guilty as a ‘‘major influence’’ on their act (Hjelmeland et al.,
2002:385). Suicide may also be a way of initiating supernatural aggression,
perhaps by transforming the aggrieved into a vengeful ghost. Such supernatu-
ral beliefs and practices were found in traditional India (Thakur, 1963:63),
colonial Tanganyika (Jeffreys, 1952:119), and rural Taiwan (Wolf, 1972:163).
Or suicide might ensure that living persons will punish one’s opponent for
instigating the death. In several societies, either the state, the victim’s kin
group, or the entire community will punish someone deemed to have driven
another to suicide (see, e.g., Counts, 1980; Hoebel, 1976:159; Pérez, 2005:62).
In these settings, such widely known and predictable third-party reactions
make suicide an effective act of retaliation, and reports suggest that it is
knowingly used as such. Among the Lusi of Papua New Guinea, for instance,
moralistic suicides are committed in a specific stereotyped fashion that makes
clear the reason for the death and the target of the grievance (Counts,
1987:196). Whatever else they might be, cases in which suicide and its conse-
quences are used as a weapon qualify as acts of punitive social control.

Self-Execution

Suicide is not only a way of responding to someone else’s deviant con-

duct: Black (1998:Ch. 4) suggests that some cases of suicide are examples of
what he terms ‘‘social control of the self.’’ He proposes that just as persons
and groups engage in social control against others, so too they apply social
control to themselves. Even when they could otherwise escape detection or
resist sanctions, people may voluntarily confess, apologize, pay compensation,
or engage in some other act of atonement for their own wrongdoings. They
may even execute themselves (Black, 1998:66).
Suicidal behavior is social control of the self whenever it responds to the
self’s own deviance. Consider a case from Victorian England, in which a
woman killed herself for being unfaithful to her husband:
Mary Renton, aged 25, the wife of a fisherman who was at sea, was found drowned in
March 1894. The letter to her husband declared: ‘‘I have deceived you ever since Friday
night and I cannot bear to think of it again … tell Mother and brothers that I cannot
disgrace them any longer.’’ (Bailey, 1998:261)
212 Manning

A suicidal person in modern Los Angeles likewise left a note expressing her
self-complaints: ‘‘I’ve proved to be a miserable wife, mother, and home-
maker—not even a decent companion’’ (quoted in Farberow and Shneidman,
1957:43–44).
Suicide may also follow a specific offense against another party. For
example, those who kill others sometimes kill themselves in turn, possibly
expressing guilt or remorse for the killing before doing so.7 In a case occurring
among the Netsilik Eskimo:
Oaniuk was killed accidentally during a hunt. Okoktok, a poor hunter, shot him during
a caribou chase. Our informant is specific about the unintentional character of this trag-
edy: ‘‘It is certain that Okoktok didn’t want to kill Oaniuk, because the latter was a
very excellent hunter.’’ As he died, Oaniuk shouted for his gun in order to shoot back
at Okoktok, but did not get the chance. Okoktok felt terribly guilty and later, visiting
his neighbors, he declared himself ready to be killed. He was told: ‘‘You are not good
game; if you want to kill yourself, go out and do it yourself.’’ That is precisely what
Okoktok did. (Balikci, 1970:165)

A study of parricide in nineteenth-century New York suggests that suicide fol-

lowing the killing of a parent was often an act of social control:
offenders engaged in postoffense behaviors consistent with feelings of ‘‘guilt and
remorse’’ that were brought on by becoming cognizant of their violent actions. That is,
these offenders did not flee, but stayed at the scene … some committed suicide; others
ran to fetch medical assistance … some parricide offenders attempted to give cardiopul-
monary resuscitation (CPR) to their dying parents …. (Shon and Roberts, 2010:52)

An offended party may even suggest or demand that the offender commit sui-
cide. An extreme example was found in Tokugawa, Japan, where offenders
could be ordered by superiors to commit suicide by disembowelment, known
as seppuku (Pinguet, 1993:129–135). In one of the last cases of imposed sep-
puku—ordered by the Meiji Emperor in 1886—a condemned military officer
confessed: ‘‘I, and I alone, unwarrantably gave the order to fire on the foreign-
ers at Kobe … for this crime I disembowel myself, and I beg you who are
present to do me the honor of witnessing the act’’ (Pinguet, 1993:152).

EXPLAINING MORALISTIC SUICIDE

Previous studies of suicide seek to explain why some individuals are

more likely to kill themselves or why some collectivities have higher suicide
rates. My unit of analysis is neither the person nor the society, but the con-
flict. My central question is why some conflicts are handled with suicide

7
Cases in which suicide follows a killing (or other injury or offense) that was accidental or
impulsive would be the most likely candidates for social control of the self (see, e.g., Harper
and Voigt, 2007:308–309). But many homicide-suicides in the modern West involve premeditated
killings in which suicide was part of the plan from the beginning. In one common pattern—men
killing estranged romantic partners—the suicidal component does not usually appear to be self-
punishment for having committed homicide: rather, they are suicides in which another party is
‘‘taken with’’ the killer (Milroy, 1998).
Suicide as Social Control 213

while others are not. To answer this question, I use the strategy of explana-
tion (known as pure sociology) first introduced by Donald Black (1976) in his
theory of law.
In Blackian sociology, variation in social life is explained by its location
and direction in social space—or social geometry (Black, 1995:852–858,
2004b).8 Each instance of human behavior has its own unique geometry.
Social space includes vertical dimensions defined by the distribution of differ-
ent kinds of social status, including wealth, respectability, and authority.
Every form of social life has an elevation, defined by the status of all parties,
and a vertical direction, defined by who acts toward whom. For instance, a
lawsuit against a superior has an upward direction, one against an inferior
has a downward direction, and one against an equal is lateral. Social space
also has dimensions defined by the distribution of intimacy (relational dis-
tance) and similarity (cultural distance). Social life therefore spans greater or
lesser distances, based on the characteristics and relationships of the actors
involved. For instance, a lawsuit between family members involves less rela-
tional and cultural distance than a lawsuit between strangers with different
ethnicities.
Geometric variables like distance and direction predict and explain the
behavior of social life. For example, Black’s (1976) theory of law predicts that
law is greater in downward directions, implying that a complaint against an
inferior is more likely to result in arrest, conviction, and punishment than a
comparable complaint against a superior (Black, 1976:21–24; see, e.g., Cooney,
2009:39–51). It also predicts that within a society, law varies directly with rela-
tional distance, implying that those accused of victimizing strangers are treated
more severely by legal officials than those accused of victimizing intimates
(Black, 1976:40–42; see, e.g., Cooney, 2009:156–170).
Pure sociology is applicable to any subject, including variation in the
content and success of ideas (Black, 2000), the quantity of welfare (Michalski,
2003), and the frequency and severity of predation (Cooney, 2006:59).
However, it has been applied most often to various forms of social control,
including avoidance (Baumgartner, 1988:Ch. 3; Black, 1998:79–82), therapy
(Horwitz, 1982, Tucker, 1999), lynching (Senechal de la Roche, 1996, 1997),
and genocide (Campbell, 2009, 2010). The theory presented in the following
pages contributes to this body of work by explaining the use of suicide to
handle conflict. Utilizing Black’s paradigm, it specifies the distances and direc-
tions in social space in which moralistic suicide is most likely to be
found—that is, it explains suicide with the geometry of the conflicts to which
it responds.

8
Another term for social geometry is ‘‘social structure,’’ though the expression also has various
other meanings in sociology.
214 Manning

THE GEOMETRY OF MORALISTIC SUICIDE

Moralistic suicide occurs in a wide variety of settings.9 Within these set-

tings, however, it is common only within conflicts sharing certain sociological
features. Moralistic suicide is most likely to be committed by those in conflict
with persons (1) who are socially close, (2) who are socially superior, and (3)
with whom they are functionally interdependent. Additionally, (4) suicide is
more likely to the degree that the inferior in such a situation lacks third-party
support. Consider each of these relationships in detail.

Social Closeness

Moralistic suicide varies directly with social closeness. Suicide is thus more likely
to occur in conflicts between intimate and culturally homogenous parties than
in conflicts between those more distant.
Conflicts within the family are close conflicts, and the use of suicide to
express grievances should be more likely in family conflicts than in conflicts
between strangers. In many social settings, the typical conflict that produces
suicide is a conflict between spouses. For example, the majority of suicides
and attempted suicides among the Trobriand islanders occurred in the context
of ‘‘lovers’ quarrels, matrimonial differences, and similar cases’’ (Malinowski,
1976:94, 1962). Among the Cheyenne of the North American plains, suicides
to ‘‘appeal to the public for a redress of a wrong’’ almost always involve ‘‘a
grievance within the closest family’’ (Llewellyn and Hoebel, 1941:159). In early
modern Geneva, the increasing intimacy of nuclear families—especially
spousal relationships—was associated with an increase in the frequency and
proportion of suicides due to family conflicts (Watt, 2001:222). Micronesian
youth frequently commit suicide following conflicts with parents, but
[i]t is virtually unknown for a Micronesian adolescent to commit suicide after being
scolded by a teacher, a neighbor, a priest, a policeman, a friend, or a collateral relative.
If a young man seeks to marry a young woman of his choosing, but is thwarted by
his sweetheart’s parents, suicide is quite improbable. However, if his own parents reject
his plea for approval of the match, his suicide would be an accustomed response.
(Rubinstein, 1995:33)

Existing data are not detailed enough to allow us to specify the exact nature
of the suicides, but we can observe a relationship between suicide and intimate
conflict in modern America. One study found that up to 80% of suicide at-
tempters cited conflicts with spouses, boyfriends, or girlfriends as a reason for
the attempt (Bancroft et al., cited in Stark and Flitcraft, 1996:103). Another
found that 10% of female suicide attempters suffered abuse by a male intimate

9
My theoretical discussion draws heavily on an extensive search of the cross-cultural ethno-
graphic literature. Although few ethnographic accounts provide much detail on suicide as a
response to conflict, those that do report patterns consistent with the generalizations offered
below.
Suicide as Social Control 215

on the day of their attempt (Stark and Flitcraft, 1996:109). And statistics col-
lected from 16 U.S. states show that ‘‘problems’’ with intimate partners are
cited as a major precipitant in about a third of suicide cases, versus a tenth
for problems with nonintimates (Centers for Disease Control, 2009). One alter-
native explanation for this pattern is that the sheer frequency of conflict
among intimates is greater—leading to greater representation of intimate con-
flict among every mode of conflict management. Although the frequency of
conflict certainly explains part of the association between intimate conflict and
suicide, the proposition above predicts that even if frequency were held con-
stant, suicide would still be more likely in intimate disputes.

Vertical Direction

Moralistic suicide is greater in an upward direction than in a downward direc-

tion. Suicide is more likely to express grievances against social superiors than
against social inferiors. As Baumgartner observed in a discussion of social
control techniques used by subordinates against their superiors, suicide is
‘‘one of the most dramatic forms of upward social control, and also perhaps
the one with least appeal to people in more fortunate circumstances’’
(Baumgartner, 1984:328).
Thus, in highly patriarchical societies, wives sometimes resort to suicide
when offended by husbands. For example, in several Papua New Guinea
societies where women are typically subordinated to husbands and male kin,
suicide is used as a means of retaliation most often by women (Berndt,
1962:180–192; Counts, 1980, 1987; Johnson, 1981). Downward griev-
ances—by men against their wives—are commonly handled with beatings,
but the reverse is not true: women rarely use violence or direct attack, even
in self-defense. By committing suicide, however, they ensure that their kin
will demand compensation from or perhaps take vengeance against the hus-
band. Suicide may also subject the abusive husband to general shame and
ridicule. Among the Gainj, women using suicide as retaliation act to maxi-
mize the husband’s humiliation by hanging themselves near well-traveled
paths, so that their death will quickly draw public attention (Johnson,
1981:332). Because it provides a credible threat, attempted suicide may also
be effective in convincing an abusive husband to change his behavior (e.g.,
Counts, 1980:340). A similar situation exists among the Aguaruna Jı́varo of
Peru, where threatened, attempted, or completed suicide is explicitly recog-
nized as an action against abusive husbands, who will be subject to sanctions
from kin and also deprived of the wife’s labor (Brown, 1986). Likewise,
newly married women in rural China and Taiwan typically live under the
strict authority of the husband’s family, particularly their mother-in-law—
and it is conflicts with husbands and mothers-in-law that precipitate many
suicides (Lui, 2002; Wolf, 1972, 1975; Zhang et al., 2004). The prevalence of
216 Manning

this situation in rural China helps explain why suicide rates are higher for
women than for men, and why within China, female rates are lower in
urban settings, where there is less subordination (Baudelot and Establet,
2008:Ch. 9; Pearson et al., 2002).10 The combination of subordination and
family conflict also explains the high suicide rates of young married women
in rural India and Iran (Aliverdinia and Pridemore, 2009; Hadlaczky and
Wasserman, 2009:124).
Youth are similarly inferior to adults in many settings. In Western
Samoa, enraged young men commit suicide in response to slights and offenses
by parents and other older relatives, all of whom respond in ‘‘severe and puni-
tive’’ ways to direct challenges to their authority (Macpherson and Macpher-
son, 1987:324). A similar situation exists in Micronesia, where suicide among
young men has reached epidemic proportions (Hezel, 1984; Rubinstein, 1983,
1995, 2002). In this area, ‘‘the typical triggering event’’ for suicides is ‘‘a quar-
rel or argument between the young man and his parents, or occasionally an
older brother or sister, or some other older relative’’ (Rubinstein, 2002:37).
Conflict with parents also precedes many suicide attempts by adolescents in
modern America (Curran, 1987:64–65).
The very old may also be inferior relative to other adults. Among the
Jalé of New Guinea, elderly persons sometimes commit suicide when neglected
by their children—an act locals believe is ‘‘meant to hurt the guilty, who after-
ward suffer feelings of regret and self-reproach’’ (Koch, 1974:75). Among the
Vaqueiro pastoralists of Spain, the most structurally inferior members of the
family household are old, unmarried siblings of the household head, who are
treated as servants and ridiculed by the rest of the family—and it is these ‘‘old
people of the house’’ who are most likely to kill themselves in reaction to
domestic conflict (Cátedra, 1992:173–79).
Protest suicides—like public self-burning—also have an upward direction,
expressing grievances toward states and other large organizations on behalf of
less organized collectivities (see generally Biggs, 2005). For instance, in India
in 1990, a rash of suicides occurred to protest a government proposal to set
aside places in universities and government employment for lower-caste citi-
zens: ‘‘Within 10 weeks, at least 220 people—predominantly students from
privileged castes—committed self-immolation’’ (Biggs, 2008:24). And in South
Korea in recent decades, many workers have killed themselves to protest the
actions of powerful, government-backed business corporations (Jang, 2004;
Kim, 2008).
High levels of intimacy can overshadow the effects of inequality, and vice
versa. Some moralistic suicides occur toward those who are socially close but
similar in status (as in many cases involving intimate partners in modern

10
Another relevant factor is that rural women in China have widespread access to highly lethal
pesticides, which are used in about 62% of Chinese suicides (Hadlaczky and Wasserman,
2009:124).
Suicide as Social Control 217

America), while some occur toward those who are vastly superior but socially
distant (as in many cases involving political protest).11 However, moralistic
suicide is most likely in relationships that combine intimacy, homogeneity, and
inequality, such as marriages in patriarchal settings or relationships between
parents and children everywhere.

Functional Interdependence

When specifying the structure most conducive to one form of social

control, it is useful to consider variables that discourage alternatives. For
example, offenses may be handled through avoidance: the aggrieved party
simply limits contact with the offender. Although some suggest that suicide is
a kind of avoidance (Black, 1998:79–80; Koch, 1974:75), we may nevertheless
distinguish it from the more common, nonviolent curtailment of interaction,
and ask why such pure avoidance is not used in place of suicide.
One variable that hampers avoidance is functional interdependence—the
extent to which the parties require the cooperation of one another for survival
or well-being (Black, 1998:77).12 But this variable has the opposite effect on
suicide: moralistic suicide varies directly with functional interdependence. Family
relationships are sometimes interdependent as well as close, and to the extent
that this is so, family conflicts are more likely to be handled with suicide. For
instance, one ethnographer links increasing economic dependence to rising
rates of moralistic suicide among Samoan youth, who are unable to escape or
directly challenge the authority of the family members on whom they depend
(O’Meara, 2002:111). Increasing dependency is also associated with rising rates
of youth suicide in Micronesia (Rubinstein, 1995:39). An investigator of sui-
cide in Japan in the 1980s observed that Japanese women do not usually seek
divorce ‘‘because legal protection and job opportunities are lacking,’’ leading
them to either tolerate marital problems or commit suicide (Iga, 1986:58). At
least one study of Japan during this period found that prefectures with higher
divorce rates had lower rates of female suicide, suggesting that divorce was
indeed an alternative to self-destruction (Chandler and Tsai, 1993). And
divorce is an alternative that becomes more likely with independence: women

11
Political grievances may also result in terrorism—covert mass violence against civilians (Black,
2004a). Terrorism often involves suicidal attacks, although in such cases self-destruction is
generally a secondary consequence of inflicting violence directly on others. Black (2004a) pre-
dicts that terrorism occurs upwardly and across very long distances in social space. Terrorism
is thus more likely against alien nations, as when Arab Muslims attacked targets in the United
States on September 11, 2001. Although protest suicide also occurs in an upward direction, it
crosses smaller distances. Protest suicide is thus mostly a domestic phenomenon, as when Arab
Muslims in several nations burned themselves to protest their own governments in late 2010
and early 2011.
12
The importance of material independence in encouraging avoidance was a major conclusion of
Baumgartner’s (1988) study of social control in suburbia. Black (1998:80) includes this variable
in his theoretical model of the avoidance structure, along with individuation, relational frag-
mentation, absence of hierarchy, and social fluidity.
218 Manning

with employment or other sources of support outside the nuclear household

find it easier to leave abusive or unsatisfactory relationships. This helps
explain why, as U.S. women entered the workforce in increasing numbers and
rates of divorce rose, the ratio of female to male suicide attempts declined
(Kessler and McRae, 1983).13

Third-Party Support

To explain how conflicts are handled, one must take account of the
behavior of third parties. Third parties may intervene as partisans, offering
various degrees of support for one side against the other, or they may intervene
as settlement agents, whether this involves formal adjudication or simply
making peace (Black and Baumgartner, 1983). In any event, they play a crucial
role in the handling of conflict (e.g., Cooney, 1998; Phillips and Cooney, 2005).
Moralistic suicide varies inversely with third-party support. Those who
receive support in a conflict are less likely to kill themselves than those faced
with similar conflicts but lacking support. Readily available support provides
alternatives. For example, one way that subordinates can pursue complaints
against social superiors is to mobilize either particular individuals or ‘‘public
opinion at large’’ to aid their cause (Baumgartner, 1984:316). When such aid
is difficult or impossible to attract, suicide becomes more likely. Thus suicide
by aggrieved wives is common among the Aguaruna Jı́varo, where women
‘‘often find their relatives reluctant to defend them from abusive husbands’’
(Brown, 1986:320). In fact, suicidal behavior itself may be an effective means
of mobilizing third parties. Among the Aguaruna, ‘‘the very kinsmen who
may be unwilling to intervene on a woman’s behalf when she is alive are gal-
vanized into action when she kills herself’’ (Brown, 1986:320). Overt appeals
to reluctant third parties are common in suicides of political protest. For
example, an analysis of suicide notes left by protestors in Korea between 1970
and 2004 revealed that protestors ‘‘committed suicide … in order to inspire
movement activism among half-hearted activists and apathetic bystanders’’
(Kim, 2008:573). As one college student wrote before burning himself: ‘‘I beg
the activists of all persuasions … Do not let my death and all the deaths of
my predecessors be in vain’’ (quoted in Kim, 2008:567). Similarly, a 14-year-
old girl who set herself on fire in London to protest the capture of a Kurdish
leader later explained: ‘‘I wanted someone to stop and think about us’’
(quoted in Biggs, 2008:25).
Third-party behavior itself varies with the social location of the third
party relative to each of the adversaries. Black’s theory of third parties uses
the social location of third parties to predict partisan support: ‘‘partisanship is
a joint function of the social closeness and superiority of one side and the social

13
Divorce may cause suicide for other reasons, and high levels of divorce will not necessarily lead
to decreases in the overall suicide rate (Durkheim, 1951:171–202).
Suicide as Social Control 219

remoteness and inferiority of the other’’ (Black, 1998:127). Black also predicts
that the overall quantity of third-party intervention, whether partisan or neu-
tral, depends on the distance between the adversaries: third-party intervention
varies directly with social distance (Black, 1995:835). Finally, he proposes that
the quantity and nature of intervention varies with the distance of the third
party from both disputants: those close to both sides will intervene as friendly
peacemakers (‘‘warm nonpartisans’’) while those distant from both sides
(‘‘cold nonpartisans’’) will not become involved at all (Black, 1998:134–135).
Close conflicts are unlikely to attract much intervention: intimate dispu-
tants are less likely to seek outside help in managing their conflicts, and
outsiders are less likely to offer it. If third parties do intervene, they are more
likely to side with the disputant of higher status. Thus those with grievances
against an intimate superior face a disadvantage in attracting partisans or
peacemakers. Still, the absence of third-party support is not inevitable. But
supportive behavior is likely only if third parties are socially close to the
aggrieved. Therefore, disputants who lack close ties to third parties will be less
able to obtain help with their conflicts and more likely to resort to suicide.
The effect of physical and social isolation on third-party support partly
explains the association between domestic violence and suicide by wives: both
abuse and suicide have similar third-party structures. As Baumgartner (1992)
argues, wife abuse is more common and more severe where wives have less
support while husbands have more. Such an imbalance often occurs when wives
reside with their husband’s kin but at a distance from their own. Societies in
which patrilineal kin form solidary residential groups tend to have more violence
against wives, more suicide by wives, and less suicide by husbands—a pattern
found among tribal New Guineans (Berndt, 1962:180–192; Counts, 1980, 1987;
Johnson, 1981; Panoff, 1977) and in the farming villages of rural China and
Taiwan (Lui, 2002; Wolf, 1975). Men in such settings who find themselves bereft
of partisans may also resort to self-destruction. For example, among the
Aguaruna, older men mobilize networks of kin and other allies for collective
action against enemies, but young men who lack such support networks some-
times commit suicide when they have conflicts with their elders (Brown, 1986).
And among the Maenge of New Guinea, only ‘‘rubbish men’’—orphans without
any kin to support them in conflicts—commit suicide (Panoff, 1977).

The Geometry of Self-Execution

Lethal social control of the self—self-execution—is a kind of moralistic

suicide, and is encouraged by the same variables that promote moralistic sui-
cide against others: inequality, social closeness, functional interdependence,
and a lack of third-party support.14

14
I thus propose that all subtypes of moralistic suicide share the same general social geometry,
though there are certainly more precise geometric differences between each.
220 Manning

Like other varieties of moralistic suicide, self-execution is more likely in

stratified conflicts, though in this case the position of the offender and the
victim are reversed: self-execution is more likely in a downward direction than in
an upward direction. Those who attract complaints from social superiors are
more likely to kill themselves than those who attract complaints from social
inferiors. Thus, in feudal Japan, members of the samurai warrior class
committed suicide to atone to their lords for ‘‘imprudence or heedlessness’’
(Seward, 1968:38). More recently, during World War II, a Japanese naval
officer disemboweled himself because ‘‘he could not complete his assigned task
within the given period of time’’ (Seward, 1968:39). And in settings that include
feudal Japan, imperial Rome, and the island of Tikopia, aggrieved superiors
sometimes order their inferiors to kill themselves—and the inferiors comply
(Firth, 1967:138; Pinguet, 1993:129–135; Seward, 1968; van Hooff, 1990:95–96).
Similarly, self-execution varies directly with social closeness and functional
interdependence. Where rulers can order subordinates to kill themselves, self-
execution is commonly restricted to members of the governing class or military
officials—individuals who are close to the central authority as well as depen-
dent upon it (Otterbein, 1986:118, n.1). In Tokugawa Japan, for instance,
self-execution was a practice of the samurai warrior class (Pinguet, 1993:129–
135; Seward, 1968). In imperial Rome, the emperor might demand suicide
from members of the senatorial class, while others received standard execu-
tions (van Hooff, 1990:95–96). Suicides expressing guilt, remorse, or expiation
are also more likely when the victim is an intimate, such as a family member.
On the Micronesian island of Truk, youth sometimes kill themselves due to
shame at their own offenses, but only when the offense injures their family:
‘‘the young Trukese can live with the fact that he is the subject of public
opprobrium in the community, but he cannot at all live easily with the feeling
that he is the cause of disgrace for his family’’ (Hezel, 1984:203).15 Self-
destruction is more likely when the offender is dependent on the aggrieved as
well. Dependence itself may even be the cause of the conflict. For example, in
one case described in the psychiatric literature a husband who cared for a
bedridden wife
began to express distaste for his own care-giving role, to blame his wife more and more
for the constriction imposed on his own activities, and to voice barely disguised antipa-
thy toward her for continuing to live … he began to talk of burglaries and purchased a
gun which he discharged in a ‘‘how to work it’’ session, he then left the loaded gun
within arm’s reach of his bedridden wife. After the demonstration and a particularly
bitter soliloquy, the husband went to work. The wife killed herself shortly afterwards.
(Perlin and Schmidt, 1975:157)

15
The closest relationship in the social universe is that between a person and himself, and conflict
can occur in this relationship as well (Black, 1995:835, n.7). Self-conflict exists whenever people
define themselves as bad, wrong, guilty, or crazy, even if they do not harm or attract
complaints from anyone else. One young American, for example, had long defined himself as
deviant for his secret homosexuality and artistic aspirations. After surviving a suicide attempt,
he recalled: ‘‘I hated myself in many ways because I didn’t like this—this double life I was
trying to lead’’ (quoted in Heckler, 1994:60).
Suicide as Social Control 221

Finally, self-execution varies inversely with third-party support. Among the Tik-
opia, for example, a man who offended the chief might volunteer to go on a
suicide voyage. His departure could be prevented, however, if ‘‘a man of
rank’’ intervened and ordered him to stop, at which point the offender ‘‘could
then acquiesce in obedience to the command, yet with the dignity of having
been prepared to expiate his offence with his life’’ (Firth, 1967:138).

A Note on Anomalies

All testable theories have anomalies—cases that, initially at least, do not

match the theory’s predictions. Thus even in highly patriarchal settings, men
might occasionally kill themselves over grievances against their wives. For
example, one New Guinea Highlander became deeply offended and attempted
to hang himself because his wife accused him of being lazy (Berndt, 1962:
191–192). Similarly, there are instances in which adults kill themselves due to
grievances at their adolescent children (as in a U.S. case known to the author).
Such cases appear to be exceptional, but are still scientifically problematic.
Some anomalies are due to problems of observation: they arise only
because a relevant variable has not been correctly measured.16 Many anoma-
lies are explained away with further investigation, resulting in new discoveries.
The planet Neptune, for example, was discovered when scientists investigated
an exception to the predictions of Newton’s theory of gravity (see Bamford,
1996). Indeed, testable theory is valuable precisely because it focuses attention
on exceptional cases and motivates the kind of ‘‘puzzle solving’’ that charac-
terizes theoretically advanced fields (Kuhn, 1996; Lakatos, 1970). But not all
anomalies are simply the result of inadequate measurement: some arise
because of limitations of the theory. Many can be solved by minor revisions
to the theory, but some are resolved only with the advent of a new theory
using a new strategy of explanation (see, e.g., Campbell, 2010).

THE PURE SOCIOLOGY OF SUICIDE

The task of a general theory of social control is to explain variation in

how grievances are handled, whether it be with litigation, expulsion, or
self-destruction. To this end, I offer a number of simple, general, testable, and
original propositions that predict and explain when grievances are handled
with suicide. The relevance of my work to the study of social control should
be clear. But my theory is also relevant to the study of suicide. Here, the
significance of my work lies mostly in the manner in which it departs from

16
Because it is impossible to measure with exact precision or account for all confounding factors,
my theory (like other sociological theories) is best understood as making probabilistic predic-
tions.
222 Manning

previous theories of suicide and, indeed, from all conventional approaches to

the subject.
Consider the unit of analysis with which previous theories of suicide are
concerned. There is a good deal of disagreement over the unit of analysis in
Durkheimian theory (see, e.g., Berk, 2006). Durkheim himself is quite insistent
that explaining the ‘‘social suicide-rate’’ is different from explaining why per-
sons kill themselves and that his theory is not individualistic (Durkheim,
1951:297–325). On the other hand, for each proposed relationship, Durkheim
provides a social-psychological account to explain how the motivation for sui-
cide arises within the individual—for example, suicide caused by low social
integration (called egoistic suicide) arises because individuals need to feel
attached to some collective purpose in order to justify their lives (Durkheim,
1951:209–216). Durkheim also applies his theory to explaining the correlation
between suicide and individual social characteristics such as age and marital
status. Thus, despite protests to the contrary, Durkheimian theory is individu-
alistic in both logic and application.
My theory, however, is different. As with other Blackian theories of
social control, the locus of explanation is not the individual but the conflict.
Thus my theory makes novel predictions and addresses variation that previ-
ous theories ignore. To illustrate, one might compare the predictions of my
theory to the theory of egoistic suicide—the most strongly supported element
of the Durkheimian theory. As commonly understood, this theory predicts
that less integrated persons—such as the unmarried and childless—are more
likely than more integrated persons to commit suicide. Therefore, it implies
that less integrated persons would be more likely to commit suicide when in
a conflict, but the theory makes no predictions about why, holding integra-
tion constant, someone would commit suicide in response to one conflict but
not to another.
My theory, on the other hand, makes no blanket predictions about the
likelihood of individuals to kill themselves across all situations. What it does
do is predict why, if social integration is held constant, an aggrieved person is
more likely to commit suicide in one conflict than in another—for instance, a
social isolate facing a superior adversary is more likely to commit suicide than
someone equally isolated facing an inferior adversary. The individual is but
one component of the conflict structure, and thus the conflict structure varies
even when the individual is held constant.
Pure sociological theories predict the behavior of social life rather than
the behavior of individuals as such. Thus, in addition to being able to explain
why the same individuals behave differently across different situations, such
theories can also be applied to the behavior of individuals who take seemingly
distinct roles within an instance of social life. Black’s (1976) theory of law, for
instance, predicts not only when prosecutors prosecute or juries convict, but
also when defendants plead guilty or file for appeal. Likewise, my theory of
self-execution explains not just when offenders are likely to resort to suicide,
Suicide as Social Control 223

but when others are likely to allow, encourage, or demand that such suicide
take place.17 Blackian theories are also applicable to conflicts involving organi-
zations as well as those involving individuals. Thus my theory predicts when
groups will engage in moralistic suicide by allowing, encouraging, or assisting
in the suicide of their members.18 My theory therefore addresses kinds of vari-
ation not addressed by previous theories of suicide.19
Note that while my theory is not individualistic, neither is it collectivistic,
as was apparently the intention of Durkheimian theory.20 Collectivistic theo-
ries explain variation in behavior with the stable characteristics of social
groupings such as cities or nations. Thus one country may be said to have a
higher rate of suicide than another because of differences in culture or social
stratification. A key feature of collectivistic theories is that they do not address
variation within the collectivity concerned. However, the theory of moralistic
suicide looks at the social geometry of individual conflicts. Like other Blackian
theories, it is neither individualistic nor collectivistic, but situational (Black,
1995). Black argues that the social geometry of the conflict provides a more
powerful explanation: ‘‘A shortcoming of individualistic theories … is that no
individuals are violent in all their conflicts. And a shortcoming of collectivistic
theories … is that no collectivities are violent in all their conflicts … Both fail
to predict and explain precisely when and how violence occurs’’ (Black,
2004b:147). Thus a theory that specifies which individuals are more likely to
kill themselves does not tell us which conflicts are more likely to trigger a sui-
cide, neither does a theory that explains the rate of suicide for the society as a
whole. Only a theory focused on the social geometry of the conflict itself can
explain when a moralistic suicide will occur.

17
For example, though the Nazi regime was quite willing to exterminate its enemies, some who
were socially close to the Nazi leadership were offered the alternative of suicide. In one case,
when Hitler decided to eliminate Ernst Röhm, chief of staff of the Storm troopers and ‘‘one of
his oldest comrades,’’ he ‘‘was keen to give his old friend the opportunity to kill himself’’ by
seeing that he was provided with a pistol. Röhm, however, refused to commit suicide and was
executed (Goeschel, 2009:85, see also 140).
18
The famous protest suicide of Thich Quang Duc in Vietnam was orchestrated with the
approval and assistance of his fellow monks. For instance, when his gasoline soaked lighter
failed to ignite, another monk threw him a pack of matches (Chanoff and Van Toai, 1986:141–
143).
19
Conversely, previous theories address a kind of variation not covered by my theory. Theories
using different paradigms commonly tackle different problems—rather than simply proposing
competing solutions for the same problem—making it difficult to rank the theories in terms of
the number of facts they explain (Kuhn, 1996:146–158).
20
Individualistic explanations can be extended to collectivities—for example, by inferring that a
society with high divorce rates will have many unintegrated individuals. Similarly, my theory
can be extended to either collectivities or individuals. Thus we may infer that a society with
patriarchal families will have many close, stratified conflicts and that women in patriarchal
societies are more likely than men to have close, upward grievances. In both cases, the locus of
explanation is still the conflict.
224 Manning

CONCLUSION

Human behavior is remarkably plastic, and the response to deviance can

take on many forms, including storming off, complaining to a superior, and
delivering a beating. Under certain conditions, it may even take the form of
self-destruction. In some cases, suicide is a kind of terminal withdrawal, socio-
logically similar to divorce and other forms of avoidance. In others it is an act
of aggression, inflicting punishment on an offender. Still other instances com-
bine both these elements. In all these cases, suicide is social control.
Suicidal social control is more likely in conflicts marked by social close-
ness, inequality, interdependence, and a lack of third-party support for at least
one side. Each variable increases the likelihood of moralistic suicide, and its
probability is even greater when all are present in combination. Thus moralis-
tic suicide is most frequent and pronounced in settings where these factors
converge: in tribal and traditional societies where relationships are stable,
multifaceted, and highly interdependent, where families are rigidly stratified,
and where patterns of kinship and residence promote extremes of third-party
support. But in modern societies these conditions decline: relationships are
more often fleeting, fluid, independent, and egalitarian. Moralistic suicide thus
declines, becoming a less pronounced feature of social life. However, it does
not disappear. It can still be found in conflicts between husbands and wives,
parents and children, citizens and rulers, and even between people and them-
selves. The geometry of self-destruction is far from extinct.

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