Anger is part of the progression to homicidal rage. I doubt any of us, murderers excepted, have actually felt true homicidal rage, but we can understand it. I'm sure many of us have acted violently while outraged, it's not just about relationships. You never lashed out at anyone for anything? You never hit someone? Not even when you were a kid. I find that hard to believe. You say you've had your heart broken, are you saying you never felt anger? You say violence never crossed your mind, how about any other forms of retaliation? Anyway, I was talking about relating to people who commit crimes of passion, I don't believe Shafia was like that, it was one of my main points, that his case is different than the majority of domestic homicides. But sure, I can play Devil's advocate, I can relate to anyone, including Shafia, his actions and beliefs are repugnant, but he's still a product of his acculturation. His horrifying crime is an extreme extension of a fight mothers and fathers have with their children every day. What girl never had her mother or father forbid her from wearing something or set a curfew? Parents exercise those sorts of controls over their children all the time, if their children disobey them, the parents will become angry and frustrated and usually punish the child. Shafia was raised in a culture where a man has absolute authority over his family, and he moved to a culture where he lost that authority. His family recognized the change in culture too, his daughters rejoiced in the new freedoms our culture provides. His loss of control and belief that his daughters had betrayed his values made him angry towards them. He decided to show them all, and himself, that he was still the man he believed he was entitled to be. I never said I had sympathy for anyone, empathy is not sympathy, but I assume you know that and are just trying too hard to "win" our little discourse.

Anyone can be possessive but having those feelings towards women is especially common and encouraged

I don't know about "especially common and encouraged", it's been a while since women were chattel in the west, sure some of those sentiments linger, but most people raised here since the sixties have been taught otherwise from a young age. I suppose it depends who you are generalizing about; the further south you travel it can be like going back in time, a crime of passion is still a mitigating circumstance in many latino countries, in some places it's practically a justifiable homicide. Anyway, I agree with you to a degree, though, men are still mocked if they won't fight for a woman, girls will still often deride a boy if he lacks "masculine" aggression, etc. It's all rooted in notions that society is slow to rid itself of, not to mention regressive movements, like the anti-feminist backlash of some younger women who don't appreciate how different the feminist movement made things for them, not to mention the current generation of young men who've been raised to use "bitch" to describe the female gender. I understand where people like you and the author are coming from, if anything, the hype around this specific case is somewhat interesting. It's our society trying to show that we recognize how barbaric "honour killings" are, and trying reassure ourselves that we are better than that... and we are, but like I said, there are some family homicides here that aren't very different from the Shafia killing, so we haven't totally gotten past it ourselves, and perhaps we shouldn't be quite so smug.