Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qlrfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T14:28:10.605Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Controlling Male Aggression in Intimate Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Kirk R. Williams  and
Richard Hawkins
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Legal control of aggressive acts within the family must be assessed against a background of other familial controls. This study identifies factors that control male aggression against female partners in intimate relationships. Hirschi's (1969) theory of the social bond, applied almost exclusively to delinquency, is used to test the importance of attachments, commitments, involvement, and beliefs in controlling husband-to-wife assault. By looking at males who do not assault their partners, we gain some insight into the ways in which legal policies might be structured to reduce domestic violence against women.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , 1989 , pp. 591 - 612
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 The Law and Society Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Law and Society Association's annual meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, June 10, 1989. This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, “Panel Survey of Deterrence Processes” (SES-852-232), whose principal investigators were Kirk R. Williams and Murray A. Straus. Work on this paper was carried out with the aid of a post-doctoral research fellowship under National Institute of Mental Health Grant T32MH15161 to the Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire. Helpful comments were provided by Ralph Bristol, Ron Farrell, David Finkelhor, Murray Straus, Linda Williams, and Yvonne Vissing. We also want to thank Herbert Jacob, Shari Diamond, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and criticisms.

References

ALDRICH, John H., and Forrest D., NELSON (1984) Linear Probability, Logit, and Probit Models. Beverly Hills: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ANSON, Ofra (1989) “Marital Status and Women's Health Revisited: The Importance of a Proximate Adult,” 51 Journal of Marriage and the Family 185.Google Scholar
BERK, Richard A. (1983) “An Introduction to Sample Selection Bias in Sociological Data,” 48 American Sociological Review 386.Google Scholar
BERK, Richard A., Sarah Fenstermaker, BERK, Donileen R., LOSEKE, and David, RAUMA (1983) “Mutual Combat and Other Family Violence Myths,” in Finkelhor, D., Gelles, R. J., Hotaling, G. T., Straus, M. A. (eds.), The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
BOGARD, Michele (1988) “How Battered Women and Abusive Men Account for Domestic Violence: Excuses, Justifications or Explanations?” in Hotaling, G. T., Finkelhor, D., Kirkpatrick, J. T., and Straus, M. A. (eds.), Coping with Family Violence: Research and Policy Perspectives. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
BOLGER, Niall, Anita, DELONGIS, Ronald C., KESSLER, and Elaine, WETHINGTON (1989) “The Contagion of Stress Across Multiple Roles,” 51 Journal of Marriage and the Family 175.Google Scholar
BROWNE, Angela, and Kirk R., WILLIAMS (1989) “Exploring the Effect of Resource Availability and the Likelihood of Female-Perpetrated Homicides,” 23 Law & Society Review 75.Google Scholar
BURSIK, Robert J. Jr. (1988) “Social Disorganization and Theories of Crime and Delinquency: Problems and Prospects,” 26 Criminology 519.Google Scholar
CAZENAVE, Noel A., and Murray A., STRAUS (1979) “Race, Class, Network Embeddedness and Family Violence: A Search for Potent Support Systems,” 10 Journal of Comparative Family Studies 281.Google Scholar
CRESSEY, Donald R. (1953) Other People's Money: A Study in the Social Psychology of Embezzlement. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
DURKHEIM, Emile ([1925] 1961) Moral Education. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
DURKHEIM, Emile ([1897] 1951) Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
DURKHEIM, Emile ([1893] 1933) Division of Labor in Society. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
DUTTON, Donald G. (1988) The Domestic Assault of Women. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
EKLAND-OLSON, Sheldon (1984) “Social Control and Relational Disturbance: A Microstructural Paradigm,” in Black, D. (ed.), Toward a General Theory of Social Control: Selected Problems, Vol. 2 Orlando: Academic Press.Google Scholar
FAGAN, Jeffrey (1989) “Cessation of Family Violence: Deterrence and Discussion,” in Ohlin, L. and Tonry, M. (eds.), Family Violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
FAGAN, Jeffrey (1988) “Contributions of Family Violence Research to Criminal Justice Policy on Wife Assault: Paradigms of Science and Social Control,” 3 Violence and Victims 159.Google Scholar
FAGAN, Jeffrey, and Sandra, WEXLER (1987) “Crime at Home and in the Streets: The Relationship Between Family and Stranger Violence,” 2 Violence and Victims 5.Google Scholar
FELD, Scott L., and Murray A., STRAUS (1989) “Escalation and Desistance of Wife Assault in Marriage,” 27 Criminology 141.Google Scholar
FRIEDMAN, Lawrence M. (1985) Total Justice. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
GELLES, Richard J. (1983) “An Exchange/Social Control Theory,” in Finkelhor, D., Gelles, R. J., Hotaling, G. T., and Straus, M. A. (eds.), The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
GELLES, Richard J., and Murray A., STRAUS (1979) “Determinants of Violence in the Family: Toward a Theoretical Integration,” in Burr, W. R., Hill, R., Nye, F. I., and Reiss, I. L. (eds.), Contemporary Theories About the Family. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
GELLES, Richard J., Murray A., STRAUS, and John W., HARROP (1988) “Has Family Violence Decreased? A Response to Timothy Stocks,” 50 Journal of Marriage and the Family 286.Google Scholar
GIBBS, Jack P. (1987) “The State of Criminological Theory,” 25 Criminology 821.Google Scholar
GOVE, Walter R. (1972) “The Relationship between Sex Roles, Marital Status, and Mental Illness,” 51 Social Forces 34.Google Scholar
GREENBLAT, Cathy Stein (1983) “A Hit Is a Hit Is a Hit . . . Or Is it? Approval and Tolerance of the Use of Physical Force by Spouses,” in Finkelhor, D., Gelles, R. J., Hotaling, G. T., and Straus, M. A. (eds.), The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
HARVARD LAW REVIEW (1988) “Note: Maternal Rights and Fetal Wrongs: The Case Against the Criminalization of ‘Fetal Abuse,‘” 101 Harvard Law Review 994.Google Scholar
HIRSCHI, Travis (1989) “Exploring Alternatives to Integrated Theory,” in Messner, S. F., Krohn, M. D., and Liska, A. E. (eds.), Theoretical Integration in the Study of Deviance and Crime. Albany: State University of New York.Google Scholar
HIRSCHI, Travis (1986) “On the Compatibility of Rational Choice and Social Control Theories of Crime,” in Cornish, D. B. and Clarke, R. V. (eds.), The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
HIRSCHI, Travis (1969) Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
HOTALING, Gerald T., David, FINKELHOR, John T., KIRKPATRICK, and Murray A., STRAUS (eds.) (1988) Coping with Family Violence: Research and Policy Perspectives. Newbury Park: Sage.Google Scholar
HOTALING, Gerald T., Murray A., STRAUS, and Alan J., LINCOLN (1989) “Intrafamily Violence, and Crime and Violence Outside the Family,” in Ohlin, L. and Tonry, M. (eds.), Family Violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
HOTALING, Gerald T., and David B., SUGARMAN (1986) “An Analysis of Risk Markers in Husband to Wife Violence: The Current State of Knowledge,” 1 Violence and Victims 101.Google Scholar
KORNHAUSER, Ruth Rosner (1978) Social Sources of Delinquency: An Appraisal of Analytic Models. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
KROHN, Marvin D. (1986) “The Web of Conformity: A Network Approach to the Explanation of Delinquent Behavior,” 33 Social Problems S81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LASLEY, James R. (1988) “Toward a Control Theory of White-Collar Offending,” 4 Journal of Quantitative Criminology 347.Google Scholar
LISKA, Allen E., and Mark D., REED (1985) “Ties to Conventional Institutions and Delinquency: Estimating Reciprocal Effects,” 50 American Sociological Review 547.Google Scholar
MATZA, David (1969) Becoming Deviant. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
MATZA, David (1964) Delinquency and Drift. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
MEAD, George Herbert (1918) “The Psychology of Punitive Justice,” 23 American Journal of Sociology 577.Google Scholar
MERTON, Robert K. (1938) “Social Structure and Anomie,” 3 American Sociological Review 672.Google Scholar
MILARDO, Robert M. (1989) “Theoretical and Methodological Issues in the Identification of the Social Networks of Spouses,” 51 Journal of Marriage and the Family 165.Google Scholar
MILARDO, Robert M. (1988) Families and Social Networks. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
MINOR, W. William (1978) “Deterrence Research: Problems of Theory and Method,” in Cramer, J. A. (ed.), Preventing Crime. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
MINOR, W. William (1977) “A Deterrence-Control Theory of Crime,” in Meier, R. F. (ed.), Theory in Criminology: Contemporary Views. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
PAGELOW, Mildred Daley (1984) Family Violence. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
PATERNOSTER, Raymond (1989) “Decisions to Participate in and Desist from Four Types of Common Delinquency: Deterrence and the Rational Choice Perspective,” 23 Law & Society Review 7.Google Scholar
PESCOSOLIDO, Bernice A., and Sharon, GEORGIANNA (1989) “Durkheim, Suicide, and Religion: Toward a Network Theory of Suicide,” 54 American Sociological Review 33.Google Scholar
SHERMAN, Lawrence W., and Ellen G., COHN (1989) “The Impact of Research on Legal Policy: The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment,” 23 Law & Society Review 117.Google Scholar
SHIELDS, Nancy M., George J., MCCALL, and Christine R., HANNEKE (1988) “Patterns of Family and Nonfamily Violence: Violent Husbands and Violent Men,” 3 Violence and Victims 83.Google Scholar
SHORT, James F. Jr., and Fred F., STRODTBECK (1965) Group Process and Gang Delinquency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
SMITH, Douglas A., and Craig D., UCHIDA (1988) “The Social Organization of Self-Help: A Study of Defensive Weapon Ownership,” 53 American Sociological Review 94.Google Scholar
STOCKS, J. Timothy (1988) “Has Family Violence Decreased? A Reassessment of the Straus and Gelles Data,” 50 Journal of Marriage and the Family 281.Google Scholar
STRAUS, Murray A. (1979) “Measuring Intrafamily Conflict and Violence: The Conflict Tactics (CT) Scales,” 41 Journal of Marriage and the Family 75.Google Scholar
STRAUS, Murray A., and Richard J., GELLES (1989) Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.Google Scholar
STRAUS, Murray A. (1986) “Societal Change in Family Violence from 1975 to 1985 as Revealed by Two National Surveys,” 48 Journal of Marriage and the Family 465.Google Scholar
STRAUS, Murray A., Richard J., GELLES, and Suzanne, STEINMETZ (1980) Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family. New York, NY: Doubleday/Anchor Press.Google Scholar
STRAUS, Murray A., and Gerald T., HOTALING (1980) The Social Causes of Husband-Wife Violence. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
THORNBERRY, Terence P. (1987) “Toward an Interactional Theory of Delinquency,” 25 Criminology 863.Google Scholar
UMBERSON, Debra (1987) “Family Status and Health Behaviors: Social Control as a Dimension of Social Integration,” 28 Journal of Health and Social Behavior 306.Google Scholar
WILLIAMS, Kirk R., and Richard, HAWKINS (1989) “The Meaning of Arrest for Wife Assault,” 27 Criminology 163.Google Scholar
WILLIAMS, Kirk R. (1986) “Perceptual Research on General Deterrence: A Critical Review,” 20 Law & Society Review 545.Google Scholar