Husband-to-wife violence has been the focus of much research and several theories have attempted to explain its occurrence. This study tested exchange theory and resource theory, examining the possibility that not only lower status husbands, but also husbands of higher status, may be influenced toward aggression by status discrepancies with their wives. It is based on data drawn from a cross-sectional national sample of 2,143 American couples in 1976. Questionnaires were completed through interviews with 960 men and 1,183 women. Characteristics measured were husband-to-wife violence, socioeconomic status, status discrepancies between spouses, marital power, status concern, and background variables. The sample had 1,839 couples reporting no violence and 250 couples reporting violence in the past year. The relationship between husband's occupational prestige and husband-to-wife violence was found to vary according to the wife's occupational prestige. When the wife's status was low, she had a relatively high probability of being assaulted regardless of the husband's prestige; and while high prestige wives had a lower risk of abuse overall, the chances of high status wives being victimized increased as their husbands' status decreased. The finding that a husband's prestige was not related to violence when the wife's prestige was low but was negatively related when the wife's prestige was high suggests that the effect of the husband's occupational prestige on violence depends on the wife's prestige. (NB)