How can we articulate the social reality of the couple and its unconscious reality to account for contemporary conjugal violence? After a brief review of the anthropological foundations of the couple and the symbolic (marriage, civil solidarity pact – PACS) or “free” alliance link that underpins it, we will evoke the imaginary of conjugality. In other words, the fantasy of the ideal realization of oneself and one's affects via the couple relationship, in order to pose the conjugal and subjective coordinates involved in the passage to the violent act. Two clinical vignettes allow us to comprehend how the passage from love to hatred operates in the conjugal bond. Such understanding will open up possible dislocations, roots of violence, among social, imaginary, subjective and intersubjective dimensions of conjugality.
Keywords:
Domestic violence; social dimension; intersubjective; hainamoration