Domestic Violence: An Overview

Abstract

When the title of this chapter was being considered, there were several terms that might have been used to describe violence against women by their partners or ex-partners. The truth is that there are no entirely satisfactory terms: each has its own dangers and shortcomings. ‘Marital violence’ and ‘spouse abuse’, for example, presume that the partners are married, and fail to recognise that violence between partners is overwhelmingly male violence against women. The term ‘battered women’ identifies the victim accurately, but appears to restrict the violence to physical assault, and is ambiguous in that it gives no indication that the violence occurs within the context of private relationships. ‘Battered wives’ avoids this confusion, but has the added disadvantage of excluding unmarried couples. Pahl (1985) points to the significance of the use of the term ‘battered wives’ rather than ‘violent husbands’: the effect is to shift the focus from the perpetrators to their victims. The term ‘domestic dispute’ is far too weak since disputes do not necessarily involve violence.