The Law of Domestic Violence, the protected legal good and patriarchy: A preliminary study

Abstract

The essay aims to examine the legal good protected by the Law of Domestic Violence 20.066 in light of the meaning of the term patriarchy. The essay addresses the objective by resorting to other disciplines, such as social theory and philosophy, to enrich the criminal law discussion on law 20.066. Although this is a preliminary study, where it is not possible to address all the complexity involved in understanding Law 20.066 under the notion of patriarchy, certain substantive conclusions are established about the protected legal good, and certain lines of research are proposed that promise to be fruitful in this matter. The work begins by distinguishing the difference between gender and sex. On this basis, it proposes an understanding of patriarchy as a structural injustice, which manifests itself in the unequal deprivation or restriction of certain fundamental options for the good life of the people. Then, certain proposals about the legally protected good of Law 20.066 are criticized, and finally a proposal is made that incorporates the term patriarchy in the justification of the forms of conduct criminalized by the law.