Battered Wives

Abstract

Some of the details of a survey of 100 battered wives are presented, including the types of injuries seen and the backgrounds to the cases. A woman who is repeatedly assaulted by her marital partner experiences considerable difficulty in finding a safe place to escape to with her disturbed children. Unless she can find sanctuary, the law can be circumvented by further violence from her husband. A woman can easily enter into a second violent relationship, not because she chooses a violent partner, but because such men are the few readily available in her social sub-culture. The example given to the children prepares the ground for them to enter into the same type of relationships in the next generation.