Senicide
Senicide, also known as geronticide or gerontocide, is the practice of killing the elderly. This killing of the elderly can be characterized by both active and passive methods as senio-euthanasia or altruistic self-sacrifice. The aim of active senio-euthanasia is to relieve the clan, family, or society from the burden of an old person. But an old person might kill themself altruistically. In case of the altruistic self-sacrifice, the aim is to fulfill an old tradition or to stop being a burden to the clan. Both are understood as a sacrificial death.
Senicide is found in various cultures all over the world and has been practiced during different time periods. The methods of senicide are rooted in the traditions and customs of a given society.
Terminology
The word senicide "is less well known, though of older provenance" than geronticide. It is "so rare a word that Microsoft Word’s spellcheck underlines it in red, itching to autocorrect it to suicide", according to historian Niall Ferguson. In an article for The Fortnightly Review, African explorer Harry Johnston first used the term "senicide" in 1889. He reported that in ancient Sardinia, the Sardi considered it a sacred duty to kill their elderly relatives with a club or by forcing them to jump from a high cliff.Various authors use the terms "gerontocide" and "geronticide" interchangeably. Maxwell might have used geronticide for the first time in 1983. Today we find both terms in common usage; "senicide", referring to the cultural and ritual killing of the old aged; and "geronticide", referring to the murder or manslaughter of any senior person.
Senicide in ethnography and history
Since there is little evidence of these killings, such as court records or very rare eyewitness accounts, it has been suggested that most of these reports are myths about practices of foreign peoples or past times. Schulte criticized in a review of sources on native North America the quality of the data, the role of hearsay and uncredited copying of information. "This is particularly unfortunate as there is indeed some positive evidence for a practice of gerontocide, which could serve as a basis for serious studies". However, senicide can be easily detected in the custom of thalaikoothal to this day in India.The low value and image of old age is the source of all ageism, which may lead especially in very old age and times of great need to senicide. According to author Michael Brogden, most "societies kill the elderly“ under certain conditions, or more precisely: "it is the social group that kills". Brogden also noted that very often in close family groups, it is the son, after an intensive discussion among the elders, who carries out the killing.
Pousset found in an overview of some ethnological studies or collections that 162 ethnic groups worldwide practiced senicide.
It has been claimed that only in a "few idyllic pastures for older people" was there no senicide, not even reflected in legends, folk and fairy tales or in ethnographic studies. There is no pervasive or extensively confirmed senicide among the Hungarians, Finns, Jews, Egyptians, and Persians. Simone de Beauvoir names other ethnic groups like the Kuna, Inca and Balinese, who have a strong cultural tradition of respect for their older citizens and no extensive tradition of senicide. There are other groups in which older citizens lose prestige, but these groups do not practice senicide. These include Arando, Choroti, Jivaro, Lele, Lepcha, Mataco, Miao, Mende and Zande. Concerning some ethnic groups like the Aleuts, more research is needed as different results are found whether they do practice senicide.
Forms of senicide
In senio-euthanasia or involuntary euthanasia, the old person is actively killed by strangulation, drowning, stabbing, by a club, shooting, submersion in an oil-bath, being pushed or forced to jump from a cliff, hypo- or hypermedication, and other methods. Senio-euthanasia might also occur passively by omission and termination of treatment as well as neglect by abandonment until death. In some cases, senicide progresses slowly through a long period of social death. This situation in today’s old age homes is frequently referred to as “granny dumping”. An old person may altruistically use either an active or passive method to end his life like throwing under a train or poisoning, or he dies a silent-passive death by laying down in the savannah or a cavern e.g. - dying a psychogenic death. The old person may also voluntarily refuse all food and fluids - also voluntarily stop eating and drinking. This ends in terminal dehydration. Émile Durkheim described the type of psychogenic death as fatalistic suicide. VRFF was already known by the Greeks and Romans in antiquity as a highly distinctive method to end life, the autothanasia. The Greeks called the method of stopping voluntarily all food and fluids kartería, the Romans inedia,.Heroic death
An especially distinctive and altruistic form of sacrificial death or suicide is called “heroic death” and is known from antiquity. A hero risks his life in noble deeds of bravery. Eventually he kills himself for others or for a higher goal.Motivation for senicide
The social motivations for senicide are disputed. Motivations arising during times of environmental difficulties and war. For reasons of conflict are somewhat understandable. However, there are ethnic groups who practice senicide primarily from socio-tradition. External factors are not the primary motivations. These societies emphasize socio-cultural explanations that give an added value or unique perspective to the death of an elder person. They see the elderly person’s death as voluntary and their deaths as valiant and commendable under the circumstances.All cases arise from material necessity. Modern forms of senicide are senio-euthanasia via neglect, stopping various life-supporting devices, and under- or overmedication in family or old age homes are more clandestine. The form of altruistic VRFF as extinction is known as the “silent scandal”