On the Relationship Between Wife Beating and Child Abuse (From Feminist Perspectives on Wife Abuse, P 158-174, 1988, Kersti Yllo and Michelle Bograd, eds. -- See NCJ 119043)

• NCJ Number: 119050
• Author(s): L H Bowker; M Arbitell; J R McFerron
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 17 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This chapter presents results of a study on the relationship between wife abuse and child abuse.

Abstract

Research evidence suggests links between child abuse and wife beating: specifically, that husbands and wives who assault each other tend to hit their children. Public media was used to gather 1,000 women to complete questionnaires. Of the families with children, wife beaters abused children in 70 percent of the cases. Child abuse was generally less severe than wife abuse in these families. Other results indicated that the more children there were in the family, the more likely one of them was abused; the quality of the violent marriage was related to child abuse; and the worse the wife beating, the worse the child abuse. The most intriguing finding was the positive relationship between husband dominance and spousal child abuse which identifies the major cause of wife beating as the husband's attempts to maintain familial dominance. 17 references.