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Battered Wives​—A Look Behind Closed Doors

WIFE beating is a startlingly common occurrence. The magazine Psychology Today reports that “one in 10 women will be seriously assaulted (hit, kicked, bitten or worse) by her husband sometime during the course of her marriage.” A year later the magazine Family Relations indicated that the magnitude of the problem was even greater, stating that “one in two women in the United States will experience domestic violence.” In Canada, according to a 1987 report, one in every ten women will be battered. In other countries the estimates are about the same.

One New York district attorney adds further testimony to the growing problem of battered wives. “Violence against women exists in epidemic proportions in American society. The FBI has estimated that one spouse is beaten every 18 seconds, and that as many as 6 million women are battered every year.” It has been determined that “wife-beating causes more injuries to women requiring hospitalization than all rapes, muggings and automobile accidents combined.” Some 4,000 women are killed yearly.

If wife abuse is a well-guarded family secret, those who are closest to the battering husband, such as his best friends, workmates, or family members outside the home, may never suspect that he is a wife beater. He may function well on his job and in society, often being looked up to by his peers as a role model. Many batterers would walk away from a fight in a bar, on the street, or in the workplace. Many would give the shirt off their back to someone in need.

With their marriage mate, however, the slightest thing can send them off into a violent rage​—a meal not prepared on time, the wrong kind of meal, the style of her dress not to his liking, she wants to watch one thing on television and he something else. A British study on battered wives revealed that for 77 percent of those assaulted, the beatings were not preceded by arguments. Reports show that in many cases the batterings are set off by something as “trivial as the wife breaking an egg yolk or wearing a pony tail.”

One husband who beat his wife admitted that he was “ticked off because his wife was tangled up in the bedclothes.” His being “ticked off” translated into his kicking her out of bed and then beating her head against the floor hard enough to cause a concussion. Said one abused wife who had suffered years of beatings: “An incident could be triggered by [my] forgetting to put a particular item on the dinner table.”

One bride of three and a half years estimated that she had been beaten about 60 times during her marriage. “He didn’t like my friends,” she said. “Gradually I stopped seeing them.” Eventually she stopped seeing her family because he did not like them. “If I tried to call, it was enough of a reason for another beating,” she explained. Said another abused wife: “In the end I asked him what my every move should be​—what to have for dinner, which way to put the furniture.”

Studies indicate that wife beatings are more likely to occur in the evenings, during the night, or on weekends. Consequently, hospital emergency staffs are more likely to encounter a woman after a severe beating than is her personal physician. Injuries that battered women may exhibit for treatment often include bleeding injuries, especially of the head and face. Internal injuries are prevalent​—concussions, perforated eardrums, and especially if the wife is pregnant, abdominal injuries. Often, strangulation marks are visible on the neck. In many cases, broken bones must be set​—jaws, arms, legs, ribs, and clavicles. Other victims may be sent to burn centers for treatment of burns from scalding liquids or acid.

Said one writer on battering husbands: “These guys are true horrors. They lock women in their rooms, they break their bones, they cripple them. They cut them with knives, test drugs on them, punch them in the face, the stomach, the breasts. They hold guns to their heads​—and they kill them.” There are reports of wives chained to their beds, wires pulled from the car to render it useless, threats of killing the woman and her children if she tries to run away. The tragedies are endless.

Added to the physical abuse, which may occur often, are the threats and accusations, the name-calling, the depression, the nightmares, and the insomnia.

What kind of man is it who would inflict this tragic abuse on his marriage mate​—a woman whom he may often say he loves and cannot do without? Consider his profile in the next article.