fatalistic suicide
one of four types of suicide proposed in 1897 by Émile Durkheim, involving excessive social regulations that restrict individuation. Feeling controlled by the values and norms of society, the person becomes hopeless and despairs of ever escaping these oppressive external forces. Durkheim associated fatalistic suicide with preindustrial social orders, citing suicides of slaves and of older childless married women as examples, and believed it to be of little contemporary relevance. Indeed, fatalistic suicide often is omitted from modern discussions of Durkheim’s typology. See also altruistic suicide; anomic suicide; egoistic suicide.