The Causes of Wife Abuse - Stress And Spouse Abuse

Straus and Gelles have found that selected variables, including employment status, income, and number of children, are often associated with domestic violence in a given family. Families with the lowest incomes, the most children, and the lowest level of employment of the husband tend to be at greater risk for spouse abuse.

In Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1980), Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Suzanne Steinmetz constructed a scale to measure overall family stress and applied it to National Family Violence Surveys data. In addition to income, number of children, and employment, they included other stressors: illness or death in the family, arrest or conviction of a family member, relocation, sexual difficulties, and problems with in-laws. They found a strong correlation between the number of stressful events experienced during the past year and the rates of family violence and abuse. The greater the stress, the greater the likelihood of abuse.

Other studies have also found a relationship between domestic abuse and stress. "Frequency and Correlates of Intimate Partner Violence by Type: Physical, Sexual, and Psychological Battering" (American Journal of Public Health, 2000) revealed that stressors, such as a male partner's unemployment and alcohol and/or drug use, were associated with an increased risk for physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.