As revealed in cases, spouse abuse, the physical mistreatment or misuse of on spouse by other, can take various forms, from shoving to battering. Most abused spouses are women, married or cohabiting. In 1992 the American Medical Association declared that it had reached”epidemic proportions” and suggested that physicians be alert to signs of domestic violence in all female parents.
Now it’s 2022 even after curtain rules and laws we can still see the domestic violence prevalent in many areas of the world.latest case of domestic violence was seen USA where a woman Gabby Petito’s death last year have been increasingly prominent on many social media and news outlets due to additional evidence that has recently been released. Petito was killed in August of 2021, and hierarchy husband committed suicide. Now when police invested they found a journal where, he confessed that he admitted to murder. Which police found now.
A woman is more likely to be assaulted by an acquaintance or acquaintance than by a stranger. It is estimated that spouse abuse occurs in at least 4 billion homes in the United States each year and between a fourth or a third of all U.S. women have been abused at least once by their husband.
General has ranked spouse abuse as the leading cause of injuries to women between the ages of 15 and 44 Indeed, 1.400 women in the U.S. are killed each year by their husbands or someone with whom they have been intimate, nearly one-fourth of all female bicides.
Spouse abuse cuts across all races, religions, educa tional levels, and socioeconomic groups . Some experts believe that more violent abuse, particularly murder, occurs more often at lower socioeconomic levels Others suggest that members of the middle class are simply less likely to report abuse, and point to the wider spac ing of middle-class homes, which prevents neighbors from detecting violence and calling the police.
For years this behaviour was viewed as a private matter, and even the legal system avoided involvement In deed, until 1874 a husband had a legal right to beat his wife in the United States. Even after that time, abusers were rarely arrested or prosecuted. Police were reluctant to do anything other than calm down domestic violence, the number-one source of police fatalities And the courts rarely prosecuted an abuser.
The emphasis on civil rights in the 1970s and the efforts of women’s groups finally revealed the magni tude of the problem, and in the past two decades state legislatures have passed more laws to empower the courts to prosecute abusers and protect victims (100 laws were passed in 1993 alone); police have become more oriented toward intervention, and the clinical profession has increasingly studied and treated the problem Twenty-five states now have laws that require the police to make an arrest when they are called to a scene where domestic violence has been reported However, arrests do not necessarily lead to convictions, nor do convictions always result in sentences that deter abusive behaviour in the future.
Abusers and Victims
Studies suggest that abusive husbands are often very emotionally dependent on their wives and on their . Many consider their wives to be their private property and are extremely jealous and possessive. In fact, some inflict more abuse when their wives pursue outside friendships or even attend to their childrens’ needs before their husbands. Beyond assault, abusive husbands tend to belittle and Isolate their wives, and repeatedly make them feel cpt , worthless, and dependent. Although the husband may show genuine remorse for a time after beating his wife, he is likely to repeat the behaviour.
Many abusive husbands were themselves beaten as children or saw their mothers beaten. Often they suffer from low self-esteem and feel generally stressed. A large percentage of them have alcohol-related or other substance-related problems.
Victims of abuse typically feel very dependent on their spouse, unable to function on their own, and even unable to experience an identity separate from their spouse. This sense of dependence and their feeling that they are helpless to change the situation keep them in the relationship despite the obvious physical dangers. The great majority of victims are not masochistic, as many clinical theorists once believed. Many stay with their spouses out of economic need. About 50 percent of victims grew up in homes where they or their mothers were abused, and most come from families that saw male and female roles in stereotyped ways. Many victims have very low self esteem , blame themselves for the abuse, and agree with their spouse that they did something bad to provoke it. Usually the pattern of abuse does not emerge until after the couple is married.
Interventions
Initially clinicians proposed couple therapy as the treatment of choice for spouse abuse. But they have learned that as long as a woman continues to be abused at home, such an intervention is but a charade. The steps of treatment now preferred are:
1) separat ing a woman from her abusive husband and situation
2) therapy for the victim to help her recognize her plight, see her options, and experience a more positive self-image and greater autonomy
3) therapy for the abuser to help him cope with life more effectively, develop more appropriate attitudes toward his wife, and develop more appropriate avenues for expressing anger and frustration
4) couple therapy, if both spouses have made satisfactory progress in their individual therapies.
A number of community programs have been set up to help provide these intervention services, including hotlines, emergency shelters or “safe houses” for women, and public organisations and self-help groups to aid abused spouses and provide education about the problem.
