Violence Against Wives: A Case Against the Patriarchy

By R. Emerson Dobash-Russell Dobash

FROM THE JACKET: “It is far more likely that a woman will be assaulted, raped, or killed by her husband than by a stranger. Yet a maltreated wife is left to struggle alone because of widespread be lies that the sanctity and privacy of marriage must not be intruded upon, that the husband has certain "rights," or that the woman her self may be at fault. This book thoroughly documents the fact that violence in the home is systematically and disproportionately directed against women, and it demonstrates that wife-beating is a form of the husband's control and domina• tion through a socially approved marital hierarchy. Unlike more narrow investigations of "domestic violence." it places the phenomenon of wife-beating firmly in its social and historical context. The authors make a case against patriarchy itself, and against its sup port in the helping professions, police, courtrooms, and hospitals.”

The authors give a grim but illuminating account of patriarchal beliefs and practices in Roman, Anglo Saxon, and American traditions that have supported the right of a husband to dominate and chastise his wife. (As recently as 1853, a reform-minded legislator found it necessary to propose to the English House of Commons that married women should be treated no worse than domestic animals.)…”

NY. Macmillan. 1979. 362p.