Abstract
Wife battering has been described as the social problem of the past decade. According to a 1976 national survey, it had reached “epidemic” proportions (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980): nearly 2 million women battered a year. At least one act of violence occurs per year in 16% of all married couples. Nearly one-third of all married couples experience physical abuse at some point. Some researchers estimate that actually over one-half of all wives will be assaulted sometime during their marriage (Walker, 1979). One-fifth of all homicides are committed by family members (FBI, 1988), and the vast majority of these are related to a long history of wife battering (Browne, 1987), as is discussed in Chapter 20.
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Gondolf, E.W., Fisher, E.R. (1991). Wife Battering. In: Ammerman, R.T., Hersen, M. (eds) Case Studies in Family Violence. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9582-0_16
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