Surveyed 65 couples beginning marital therapy and 37 couples from the community to examine interspousal reliability on reports of marital violence. Agreement between partners on the occurrence of violence was low to moderate for both samples. Husbands underreported their violent behavior, and/or wives tended to overreport violence performed by…

The aim of this study was to investigate forces that affect the timing of women's exit from violent relationships with men. Abused women were recruited from posters in the community and battered women's shelters, interviewed, and followed up for 10 years. Data for this study are based on 100 women and were analyzed using event history analysis.…

Examined discrepancies in economic status, decision-making power, communication patterns, and communication skill in three groups of spouses (n=95): domestically violent, maritally distressed/nonviolent, and maritally happy/nonviolent. Domestically violent couples were more likely than nonviolent groups to engage in husband-demand/wife-withdraw…

People who kill others rarely kill themselves afterwards. When they do, they are more likely to have killed someone with whom they were intimate. Two broad types of suicidal killers have been identified in research that presumes varying degrees of premeditation. Using data on over 700 intimate femicides, the role of premeditation in cases of…

This study examined the spousal relationship of 19 courtordered battering husbands as reflected in drawings of themselves and their wives. Two types of drawing characteristics were assessed: (a) graphic indicators of the spousal relationship and (b) graphic indicators of violent or aggressive behavior. Results revealed that the figures drawn by…

Data from the National Violence Against Women Survey show that the two major forms of husband violence toward their wives (intimate terrorism and situational couple violence) have different effects on their victims. Victims of intimate terrorism are attacked more frequently and experience violence that is less likely to stop. They are more likely…

This article presents a study conducted among 148 men from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel. A self-administered questionnaire was utilized to examine their definitions of and beliefs about wife abuse. The definitions provided by the majority of the participants were highly consistent with definitions that are accepted in the…

Drawing from social learning theories and symbolic interactionist understandings of social life, the authors suggest that physical punishment teaches aggressive and controlling strategies for solving the problems of living together and hinders the development of important problem-solving skills, specifically the ability to role take with others.…

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…

This study tested the learned helplessness theory, stress theory, and a modified stress theory to determine the best model for predicting the probability that a woman would seek help when she experienced severe violence from a male partner. The probability was hypothesized to increase as the stress of the violence experienced increased. Data were…

Investigates a largely uncharted dynamic in the literature--the incidence of wife abuse among incestuous families--and suggests that professional caregivers reevaluate conventional treatment modalities that are based on certain assumptions regarding the mother's role in incest. (Author)

Investigated relationship between courtship violence and later spouse abuse in 82 women clients at domestic violence shelters. Examination of histories with regard to physical violence during childhood, courtship, and marriage demonstrated remarkable similarity between courtship and marital violence. Relationship violence rather than courtship or…

Investigated the ability of the Child Abuse Potential Inventory to screen for child abuse in a group of spouse abusers. The completed, valid protocols revealed that 36.5 percent of the spouse abusers had elevated child abuse scores, while only 9.1 percent of the nonabusers had elevated abuse scores. (Author/BL)

Research indicates that economic dependency in women and emotional dependency in men independently contribute to domestic-partner abuse risk and that high levels of emotional dependency in an abused partner may reduce the likelihood that the victimized person will terminate the relationship. An analysis of psychological factors and social forces…

This study examined the relationships between alcohol abuse and spousal violence for 96 women in alcoholism treatment as compared to these comparison groups: 78 women receiving mental health treatment; 98 women receiving services for family violence; 91 women from a random sample of households; and 100 women in a driver education program following…