PFor centuries we have lived with the toxic idea that jealousy was the thermometer of passionan inevitable, albeit painful, corollary of “too much love”. An underlying culture has told us that the blinding anger after a betrayal was an almost human reactionan understandable weakness of those who feel hurt. But today, a ruling from the Court of Cassation definitively breaks this bond, establishing that jealousy triggered by a betrayal can never be a mitigating factor. On the contrary, it is the dark face of possession that seeks justification.
Jealousy is not love: because the Supreme Court has demolished the last alibi of violent people
The case arises from the story of a man from Milan who, unable to accept the end of his relationship and the new bond of his ex-partner, he had transformed the woman’s life into a nightmare of stalking and attacksalso injuring his new partner. In front of the judges, the defense tried to get through that violence as the outburst of a man “out of his mind” for the wrong suffered. But the Supreme Court responded with a firmness that speaks to the whole of society, not just the courtrooms: the pain of a goodbye never allows you to erase the dignity of the other.
Beyond the myth of possession: jealousy as an aggravating factor
The judges have defined this feeling as something “morbid”a distortion of affection. Why when jealousy becomes the tool to persecute someonewe are no longer faced with a broken heart, but with a desire for supremacy. It’s not love that suffers, it’s an ego that wants to dominate. For this reason, the Supreme Court ruled that acting out of jealousy “can constitute the aggravating circumstance of the abject motive” which, in the language of the law, means a motive so low and ignoble as to cause revulsion in any person. Treating a partner as private property, to be punished if he decides to look elsewhere, falls exactly into this category.
The Supreme Court demolishes the last cultural alibi: having been betrayed does not justify violence (Getty Images)
Another step towards the end of the cultural justification for violence?
This sentence it undermines those atavistic stereotypes that for too long have polluted our way of understanding relationships. It’s a sharp blow to that cultural legacy he saw in betrayal an “unjust fact” capable of legitimizing a loss of control. The Court, in fact, forcefully clarifies that the rules of our civil coexistence today they put the person’s self-determination first. Betraying may be a morally questionable or painful act, but it does not give anyone the right to turn vigilante. The “psychological state” that follows to such a discovery, it is not an element that can lighten a sentencebut rather the motive for oppressive behavior that the law has the duty to punish severely.
A justice that protects the freedom to start over
The Supreme Court’s verdict is a victory that goes beyond the single case, because protects the right of every individual to start a new life without living in terror. Although the judges ordered a referral to the Court of Appeal of Milan, the court of second instance, a technical step necessary to correct a formal error in the calculation of the amount of the sentence, the heart of the decision, however, remains intact and definitive: the man is guilty and his jealousy does not justify him. No space, therefore, for mitigating circumstances when it comes to stalking and injuries, which are only the latest disguise of power.
