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Deconstructing self-defense in wife-to-husband violence.
Source: The Journal of Men's Studies
Publication Date: 03/22/2004
Author: Sarantakos, Sotirios
COPYRIGHT 2004 Men's Studies Press

Over the years, community responses to wives' violence against their husbands have been diverse, although the overall general attitude has been one of both tolerance and dismissiveness. When alleged violence by wives was first reported, many critics dismissed such wife-initiated violence on the grounds that such violence did not (could not) exist. When evidence of such violence increased, its presence was acknowledged, but its nature and prevalence were not considered serious enough to constitute a problem or a type of domestic violence (DV). (1)

This resistance to accept wives' violence against husbands as a problem continued even when irrefutable evidence from many parts of the world showed clearly that wives and husbands assault each other in what seems to be equal proportions (see, for example, Archer, 2000; Cook, 1997; Fiebert, 1998; Gelles & Cornell, 1990; Gelles & Straus, 1988; George, 1994; Sarantakos, 1996; 1997; 1998b; 1999; Scanzoni, 1978; Schulman, 1979; Sorenson & Telles, 1991; Straus, 1993; Tjaden & Toennes, 1997; Tyree & Malone, 1991). The response to this was that wives' aggression was a necessary and legitimate means of defending themselves against abusive husbands. It was also seen as a response to frustration, stress, oppression, and victimhood and a revolt against the manifestation of patriarchal values and the enforcement of male power and supremacy (see, for example, Adler, 1992, p. 269; Hopkins & McGregor, 1991; Kurz, 1993, p. 90; Lazarus & McCarthy, 1990; McGregor, 1990; OSW, 1991, p. 7; OSW, 1992, p. 5; Seth-Purdie, 1996).
When new evidence further weakened the validity of patriarchy as a cause of women-initiated DV (see, for example, Island & Letellier, 1991; Letellier, 1994; Lockhart, White, Causby, & Isaac, 1994; Schilit, Lie, & Montagne, 1990), self-defense became a dominant explanation of wife-to-husband aggression. Simply, some contended that women are neither violent nor abusive but retaliate (hit) in self-defense against the men who abuse them. Despite the lack of sound empirical evidence to support this proposition and the growing evidence supporting the opposite (see Carrado, George, Loxam, Jones, & Templar, 1996; McNeely & Robinson-Simpson, 1987; Pearson, 1997a, b; Renzetti, 1992; Sarantakos, 1996; Sommer, 1994), the defense of self-defense in wife-to-husband violence is very popular, and has also been extensively used to defend successfully women who assaulted or even killed their husbands (for instance, Bradfield, 1998; Hubble, 1999; O'Connor & Ferrall, 1996). Research findings showing that wife-to-husband violence exists even when husbands were never violent in their home are dismissed on the grounds that their research ignores the context of violence, and hence such research can neither explain DV fully or adequately nor refute the validity of self-defense in wife-to-husband aggression.

This paper explores the adequacy of the claim of self-defense further. The guiding question here is whether the context of wives' violence, as others perceive and experience it, is always justified by the notion of the wives' self-defense. In other words, are claims of self-defense by aggressive wives always justified by reason of self-defense?

In addressing this issue, this paper will focus on (a) the presence/absence and nature of aggression by the husbands that allegedly force women to defend themselves; (b) the nature and type of violence employed
in the wives' alleged self-defense; and (c) whether the respondents considered that conditions in the violent
families in questions support the notion of self-defense.

METHOD

SAMPLE

The size and nature of the sample were influenced by the fact that (a) large-scale quantitative studies on
wife-to-husband aggression have already been conducted; (b) the empirical validity of the results of
large-scale studies were often questioned on the ground that they fail to consider the construction of
violence at the interpersonal level; (c) spouses' accounts of DV often are contradictory, making the
identification of the real nature of DV impossible; and (d) the central focus of the research is on the context
of DV. These factors suggest that an exploration of self-defense will best be served by employing a
qualitative study including a sample that would be adequate and suitable to provide truthful, credible, and
reliable qualitative data.

Working within these parameters, a sample was chosen that included 68 members of violent families,
namely the husbands (i.e., alleged victims), the wives (i.e., alleged perpetrators), one of their children, and
the wife's mother. Some advantages of this sample are that it offers first-hand information about the
nature of DV in these families while permitting others' (besides the husband's) assessment of the credibility
of the wives' accounts of self-defense and of DV in general.

Sample selection began with the husband, and then the other members were chosen. The first husbands
were chosen from a larger sample of self-defined abused husbands, identified and studied in the 1980s and
early 1990s as a part of research on unmarried cohabitation and family violence (see Sarantakos, 1984,
1992). Additional husbands were identified through snowballing, referrals of friends and relatives of the
husbands, and self-reports of husbands responding to publications and media presentations of the author's
findings. All husbands were considered whose spouses and other relatives (i.e., children and maternal
mother-in-law) were available and willing to be interviewed.

At the time of the interview, the respondents resided in rural and urban areas, mainly of New South Wales
and Victoria (Australia). All spouses of the sample were once married, but at the time of the interview all
were divorced. The average duration of the relationship was nine years, and the average time elapsed from
divorce to the survey was six years. The respondents' social status is described as low to middle class with
occupations covering a wide spectrum, from laborers to army officers, journalists, teachers, and public
servants. Equally diverse was the spouses' educational status. Overall, the difference in education between
husbands and wives was not significant.

At the time of divorce, the wives' average age was 39 years, the youngest being 33 and the oldest 45. The
husbands' average age was 43, the youngest being 37 and the oldest 48. The marital status of the
respondents at the time of the interview is shown in Table 1.

At the time of the survey, the children's ages ranged between 16 and 32; 58 percent were female and 42
percent male. All young children lived with the mother. The wives' mothers were chosen because they were
found to be more familiar with their daughters' personal lives than the wives' fathers or the husbands'
parents.

DATA COLLECTION

All respondents were interviewed, beginning with the husband, then the couple's child, the wife's mother,
and finally the wife. Standard ethical procedures were employed during the study regarding informed
consent, anonymity, and confidentiality. Parental consent from both parents was obtained to include
children in the study. Permission was obtained to cross-reference information obtained in the interviews.
In this study, "self-defense" is defined as "the use of equal force or the least amount of force necessary to
repel danger when the person reasonably perceives that she or he is in imminent danger of serious bodily
damage or death" (Walker, 1993, p. 208, cited in Heider, 1995, p. 331; see also Walker, 1990). Following
this, the central theme of the questioning employed in the study was related to the context of violence and
addressed by considering:

* the presence or absence of the husbands' alleged aggression, its nature and type;
* the nature and type of the wives' alleged aggression; and
* the respondents' (children's and wives' mothers') overall perception of the wives' alleged self-defense.

Given the size and mode of selection of the sample, as well as the nature of the study, no claim of
representativeness is made. Hence, only analytical (qualitative) generalizations are permitted (Sarantakos,
1998a).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This study produced a complex data set that addresses the questions posed at the outset. In this paper a
summary of the findings relating only to the nature of self-defense and of male "aggression" against his
wife/partner in general, and the response to the direct question of whether the wife hits in self-defense will
be presented. Other findings of the study (e.g., regarding power structures in violent families) will be
presented elsewhere.

ALLEGED AGGRESSION BY HUSBANDS

The central theme of the findings presented in this section is about the husband's actions that allegedly
force his wife to assault him in order to defend herself. The central question here is "Do husbands act in a
manner that puts wives in danger and that compels them (wives) to employ violence in self-defense?" What
do wives report? What do other relatives report? Whose accounts of DV seem more truthful? In summary,
the answers to these questions show that, while the vast majority of the wives argued strongly that the
husband was violent enough to justify her action, the wives' mothers thought otherwise. More specifically,

* 64 percent of the husbands' mothers-in-law argued that the husband was not violent against his wife;
* 24 percent of the husbands' mothers-in-law argued that the husband used "minor aggression" against his
wife;
* 12 percent of the husbands' mothers-in-law argued that the husband showed violence, that was
considered by the respondents to be serious.

The views of the children were almost identical to those of their grandmothers. The three group responses
to the central question of this section are described below.

NO AGGRESSION BY HUSBANDS

The study shows that in 64 percent of cases studied, prior to the wives' aggression, there was no
aggression on the part of the husbands. In these cases, what triggered the aggression by the wife was
violation of household rules or of personal expectations or demands of the wives on his part, such as
disregard of the wife's wishes or instructions regarding child responsibilities, insulting one of her close
friends, staying out longer than expected, gambling household money, forgetting to make the monthly
mortgage payments, or being found to have had an affair with another woman sometime in the past.

The following comments from members of the same family are typical examples:

Son: Most fights I remember happened around the table, in the lounge, or in the car. In most cases the
slap, kick, or punch came out of the blue, out of nowhere, almost without a reason. I remember Dad
reacting always by complaining, "What have I done to deserve this!", "Why did you do that," or "What have
I done, again?" ... Mom's usual reaction was: "Don't worry, he'll get over it soon."

Daughter: I remember driving down the highway with Mom behind the steering wheel and Dad next to her
keeping an eye on the highway exits; she had instructed him to remind her when to leave the highway.
Then I heard a splash and Dad shouting in despair "What have I done now?" and his glasses flying up,
hitting the ceiling of the car and landing on my lap. With blood running down his nose, he was still asking
for an explanation. He had just missed the exit.

Wife's Mother: ... [W]hen she felt she did not get what she deserved, she got angry and out of herself, and
did not know what she was doing. Mathew was a passive guy and, you know, he was at the receiving end
all the time.... He didn't want her to take her frustration onto the child; he never hit back.

Wife: I did what every other woman in my place would have done. I was strict, and I am proud of it and
acted like any other responsible wife and mother. Rules are rules, and we had--all of us, mind you!--had to
go by the roles. I was strict but I did not hurt anyone. Discipline is discipline, but I did not enjoy what I did;
it hurt me as much as everyone else, but I didn't do anything to be ashamed of. I don't know what he is
complaining about. If there was one to complain, that would be me. I was the battered wife, remember?
Ask the police, and the social worker; they will tell you. I was the battered wife, not him.

In summary, the findings presented here suggest that, at the time the wife assaulted the husband, (a)
there was no male aggression against the wife that was threatening or destructive; (b) there was no
impending danger of any kind for the wife, because by the time she assaulted him his "offence" was already
completed; (c) there was no evidence that, in the past, the wife was subjected to violence that could have
made her feel threatened, fearful, or intimidated; (d) the wife was in control of the relationship; and (e)
many wives asserting earlier to have been the victims of violence were themselves described by their
mothers and children to have been the perpetrators.

Most characteristic is first the high degree of consistency of responses of children and their grandmothers
and second the strong discrepancy in the way in which wives and all other family members described DV.
The wives' mothers and their children were almost without exception supportive of the husbands' accounts;
not those of the wives. In conclusion, in this sample, the defense of self-defense found no empirical
support. The husband posed no threat to the wife that could justify assault in self-defense.

MINOR AGGRESSION BY HUSBANDS

In less than one quarter (24 percent) of the families, the children and their grandmothers described the
husbands' behavior that preceded the wife's violence as minor in nature or simply as "minor aggression."

The following story is typical of how violence can evolve in families with abusive wives. The wife was
expecting the husband to come for lunch, and since he failed to come as arranged, she went straight to the
gathering where he was invited earlier that day, argued with him, finally slapped him on the face, and
returned home. The husband followed her, and both began arguing angrily with the husband slapping her
on the face. Following this, she stabbed him on the leg and chest, and when he fell on the floor, she kicked
him several times and left. Her mother comments as follows:

She was not in any danger, but still she was bothered by two
things, problems, whatever, you know what I mean ... things that
bothered her a lot. He went to the gathering without asking her....
She expected that her husband should have refused to go, since his
wife was not invited. Anyway, she was also hurt that they left her
out because the new woman was there, and they needed a man and
not a woman, and this made her suspicious.... And then it was his
... daring attack. To slap her, well ... this was the end of it. He
should have known better.... Anyway, this [her attack] did not
surprise me, and it shouldn't have surprised him either; it wasn't
the first time she reacted this way. As a matter of fact, other
times she was even more aggressive... ask him, he'll tell you....
He saw it coming and should have thought more seriously about it!

In summary, in the cases reported here, the behavior of the husband
was, according to the wives' relatives, (a) neither serious nor
threatening; (b) in most cases completed when the wife assaulted
him; and (c) was seen as a response to the wife's attacks. In these
cases, the wife was in control of the relationship; the responses of
children and their grandmothers confirmed the husband's claim that
the wife made the most important decisions in the family, was "the
boss" and the disciplinarian, and "had the last word" when conflicts
arose. The obvious reason for her attack was not to prevent or repel
danger but to settle a conflict or to punish him for violating family
rules or agreements. Last but not least, the wives' descriiptions of
violence in their home were proven, in most cases, at least, to be
false.

SERIOUS AGGRESSION BY HUSBANDS

In a smaller number of families (12 percent), the type of male
behavior that preceded the wife's attack was reported to be generally
serious and threatening. The following is a typical example:
When I got in the house [early in the morning], he was flat on the
couch sleeping. I walked softly through the lounge toward the
bedroom, but before I reached the door he woke up. He stood up on
his feet, grabbed the cricket bat from the side of the sofa, and he
began to swing it around a couple of times shouting loud at me,
"Where have you been the whole night, you bloody whore?" He
obviously had had a few drinks; the whisky bottle was empty next
to the couch, and this alarmed me a bit, but I did not loose my
nerves. I turned around and asked him to calm down. He continued
swinging that thing, smashing glasses and vases in its way,
coming closer and closer to me. He grabbed a heavy vase from the
table and smashed it against the wall. Then he grabbed my shoulder,
shook me hard, and forced me on the couch.... I was pissed
off and tired and wanted desperately to get some sleep. I grabbed a
long piece of glass that was lying on the floor and hit, just
hit ...; it got him just under the ear. Then I must have hit him
several times more on the arms and upper leg and chest, I can't
remember.... I must have had a few more drinks than I should; I was
f***ed up.... (Wife)

The role of the husband in these relationships is slightly different
from those discussed previously. In these cases, the husband
behaved dangerously, and could have harmed his wife. In these
cases, the allegations of the wives regarding DV and self-defense
were legitimate.

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE

The notion of a pre-emptive strike was checked in this study through
direct and indirect questioning. The reports of the children and their
grandmothers offered clear evidence showing that there was no
violence on the part of the husband against the wife during the one
year and three years prior to the wife's assault.

HUSBANDS' AGGRESSION

The findings presented in this section show that, in the present study,
the nature of the alleged aggression by the husbands that allegedly
forced wives to assault them does not support the notion that all
violent wives assault their husbands in self-defense. On the contrary,
they demonstrate that wives assaulted the vast majority of husbands
without the husbands having been violent against their wives at any
time. Apart from this, in the majority of cases, wives assaulted their
husbands long after their aggravating behavior was completed, that
is, when there was no impending danger. Of importance is also the
finding that, in a considerable number of cases, the wives'
statements on DV presented at the various levels of the study and to
the authorities are questionable, constituting a clear case of false
allegations.

ALLEGED AGGRESSION BY WIVES

Nature of alleged aggression by wives. The presence of assaults by
wives has not been questioned by the respondents. Even the wives
acknowledged assaulting their husbands, although some refused to
call it "violence" (I just hit him!) or argued that it was his fault
anyway ("He made me do it," or "He deserved it"), and although they
often presented themselves as victims hitting in self-defense. Overall,
such violence included physical assaults but also emotional abuse,
verbal assault, restriction of movement, and sexual abuse. With
regard to physical violence, in 78 percent of the cases, wives'
violence was reported to be moderate to severe. In about 38 percent,
the husband was reported to have been in need of medical attention
with some requiting hospitalization. Use (or threat of use) of
household implements (rolling pin, frying pans, broomstick, jugs, hot
water/oil, scissors and knives) was also reported. Below are a few
examples of the ways in which our respondents described their
memories on this topic, reported by members of the same family:
Husband: I could not leave her despite all this.... I often relied on her
support, sometimes even for the food I ate and the house I lived in.
This is when I was unemployed, but most of the time I earned
enough to support my family. But my most serious concern was the
children.... Well, a kick and a punch and a braised eye ... so what, I
can handle this, I thought then. I thought at least I was close to my
kids who need me, and that was enough for me!

Wife: He drank a lot and used to spend my money, the hard-earned
money to drink with his friends.... Not much, but enough to make me
angry. Well, I was not violent against him; I just pushed him around
a bit, that is true, but he made me really angry and I had to do
something about it, and I had to protect myself, because he beat me
badly several times, and I had to go to the hospital, ... and I had to
go to the police several times ... I had to stop him from doing this to
me.

Son: He was a pussycat; that's how his friends used to call him! He
never stood up for himself, and he had to take it the hard way.... A
slap and a kick would have been a blessing. The only teeth he lost all
his life were those punched out by Mom.... Things were rough those
days, and all of us suffered, most of all Dad.... He had to be
hospitalized twice; that's what I know of, at least.... I remember
Mom stressing when we went to the hospital that if we were to be
asked about dad's injuries we had to say he fell down the stairs....
Mother: He was a bit of a nuisance, sometimes, not violent but
irritating! Annoying, yes, but not dangerous. [laughs] I had him often
in my house after he had a "bang" [fight] with Lalitha. He used to
come to me because he didn't want to worry his parents and because
the first place for her to look for him would have been his parents. He
was hurt a lot, the poor guy, and they [abused husbands] have
nowhere to go, do they ...?

The nature of injuries inflicted on the husbands of this study are
similar to those reported by studies in other countries (Flynn, 1990;
George, 1992; Goldberg & Tomlanovich, 1984; Harrison, 1986;
McLeod, 1984; Struckman-Johnson, 1988; Thomas, 1993).
Interestingly, when medical attention was required, almost without
exception, both wife and husband explained the husbands' injuries to
the medical personnel as having been the result of accidents. The
authorities accepted these explanations without question.
Emotional abuse and the resulting emotional trauma were evident in
all cases and were stressed equally by children and mothers of the
abusive wives as well as by the victims. This confirms relevant
reports in the literature (e.g., George, 1992; Gregorash, 1993; Stitt
& Macklin, 1995). In several cases, emotional abuse was reported to
be as damaging as--and in certain cases even more damaging
than--physical violence. The intimidation on the part of wives who
threatened to report them to the police for assaults they have never
committed made the situation extremely oppressive and
strengthened their feelings of fear and powerlessness.
Sexual abuse (which is generally thought to be impossible in such
cases) was also reported. Belittling the husband's sexual
performance, humiliating him in front of friends by criticizing his
sexuality, refusing sex when requested, initiating sex and then
pushing him away just before he achieved orgasm, using sex aids
(medical or mechanical) to force him to have sex even when he was
against it, demanding sex when he was unwilling or unable (tired,
asleep, angry, disappointed, etc.), or forcing him to have oral or
other forms of sex without his consent and against his will, are a few
examples.

The following example is about a husband who had been subjected to
violence of many kinds. Here he describes an incident of sexual abuse
by his wife. who, apart from everything else, thought he was having
an affair with another woman. In this particular incident, she
demanded sex around four o'clock in the morning, after he returned
from factory work, although he stated that he was physically unable
to perform sexually. He reports:

So I told her bluntly that sex was out of the question and she had
to go to sleep; that was the end of the story. Not so easy, she
said. and, naked as she was, she turned around, put one knee over my
belly, riding practically on me, and moved up towards my head,
tiding on my chest.... She was short and exceedingly fat, pounding
on my chest, and I could hardly breathe. Then she demanded
that I have oral sex with her, squatting over my face bringing her
vagina to touch my mouth. There is nothing to it, she was saying,
do it now! I couldn't make it.... I had never done it in my life,
and my situation, my attitude, her attitude, the awful smell, and
the sweat or fluids--I don't know--running into my mouth and I
couldn't breathe. I tried to free myself but it was impossible. She
demanded it, and she wanted to have it....

Well, she realized that it wasn't going to happen and that
infuriated her. When I vomited, spitting up the contents of my
stomach on her, that was the end of it.... She started talking about
me feeling disgust towards her, ... to make me vomit when I was
close to her, ... and started abusing me. She slapped me several
times on the face; she grabbed my testicles and was pulling me
around, hit me on my buttocks, and punched me on the stomach.
Overall, assaults by wives seems to be diverse and to cover the
whole range of DV: from humiliating the husband in front of friends
or the children, to abusing him verbally and/or emotionally for his
"irritating behavior," to forcing him to have unwanted sex, and to
hitting the husband hard enough to break three ribs and to require
hospitalization because he gave permission to the daughter to attend
a school excursion without her approval or because he threw one of
her close friends out of their house. In comparison, according to the
children and the wives' mothers, the action of the husbands did not
justify the violence by their wives.

HIT AND RUN?

Most relevant to the discussion of the defense of self-defense is
whether wives' aggression followed a "hit and run" or a "hit and stay"
practice (see Flynn 1990; George, 1999; McNeely &
Robinson-Simpson, 1987). Simply, hit and run implies fear and may
reflect the presence of assault in self-defense. Hit and stay, on the
other hand, reflects control of the situation, lack of fear, and hence
no need for self-defense. It is therefore important to establish how
the wife behaved after she assaulted the husband. In the present
study, the husbands, wives' mothers, and children have reported that
the wife hit the husband when he was in full possession of his
faculties (not when off guard, drunk, or asleep) and that she stayed
near the husband after the assault. Only 10 percent of the wives
reported to have used a shelter, and 38 percent either reported or
threatened to go to the police.

Most interesting is the finding regarding the practice of women
running to the police after hitting the husband, although they hit him
without a reason. Even threatening to go to the police was often
taken very seriously by the husbands--not without reason. The
positive and supportive attitude of the police and authorities to
women's position was reported to have encouraged many wives to
take advantage of this and to become even more aggressive at
home. Even when they had severely assaulted the husband, their
statement that they had been assaulted and abused by him at that
time or previously was sufficient for the police to treat them as
innocent victims. Chris, who was abused by his wife for more than 10
years and who spent several nights in jail for violent behavior despite
the fact that he never assaulted her (relatives testified on this), was
very critical of police practices. He stated:

Women run the police more than the police officers. What they
[police officers] do is not what is just and right but what wives
tell them to do. Police support turns out to encourage women to
assault their husbands and get away with it. They encourage them;
they tell them how to do it and get away with it and protect or hide
them in shelters. In so doing they become accessories to the crime.
They are equally culpable of assault and battery as much as the
women they protect.

Women are reported here to use agencies such as police and shelters
as accomplices in their crimes against their husbands, a finding
reported also elsewhere (e.g., Shupe, Stacey, & Hazzlewood, 1987).
A wife's visit to the police was reported to frighten the husband, even
when there was no clear evidence of violence on his part. Ben, a
self-defined abused husband, explains this as follows:

... his [the husband's] word isn't worth a penny. He can show
evidence, he can bring the heaven on earth; no one believes him. A
tear in her eye, a pitiful face, and a soft cry is taken more
seriously than a bump on his forehead or a broken ann. As a matter
of fact, the more injured the husband, the more guilty [sic] they
think he is.... For them this shows how bad he is to make his wife
do that to him!

This attitude is confirmed by the statement of Ben's mother-in-law
when, talking about her daughter, she noted:

She had him tied down double strength on a pole. Any time he
tried to fight back, she would shout at him, "You make another
sound, and I'll get you; I will go to the police, I will; and you
know who they'll believe, don't you? So stop playing the bloody
hero with me." They are sympathetic to frightened women down
at the station, you know.

HIT ONCE?

The present study shows that when the wife hit, she did so not once
or twice but repeatedly over a long period of time. Hence, either the
wife's behavior was routine and intentional violence and intimidation,
or she was put in danger repeatedly. However, our respondents did
not support the latter. Beyond this, it is difficult to explain how an
allegedly weak, terrorized, severely abused, and powerless woman
can beat day after day a "strong and violent" husband without
triggering retaliation on his part.

LEAVING MARRIAGE

The research shows that, in all cases studied, the men and not the
women left the relationship. In almost all cases, the wife made a
concerted effort to convince the husband to return home. In 38
cases, the wife used physical force to bring the husband back home;
in 12 cases this included severe violence. This shows clearly not only
that she held the reins of the family but also that it was the husband,
and not the wife, who suffered in the relationship, and hence that she
was not hitting in self-defense.

FIRST BLOW

The present study revealed that 72 percent of the wives usually
administered the first strike; 76 percent of the husbands thought the
same way. These proportions are relatively higher than those
reported on general domestic violence (Stets & Straus, 1990),
perhaps because our sample includes only cases of violence against
the husband. Even larger is the proportion of wives who acknowledge
striking the last blow. This is obvious, given that, as reported by the
wife's mothers and their children, most abused husbands did not
strike back.

Striking the first blow is not always an indicator of being the violent
and abusive partner. Wives may strike first because if they do not
they may be beaten badly. However, combined with the fact that--as
shown above--(a) husbands' alleged aggression is not of the kind
that causes danger to the family, (b) husbands and not wives leave
the relationship, (c) wives strike repeatedly, and (d) that wives do
not run away after the violent incident, striking the first blow can be
an indicator of being the violent spouse.

WIFE'S AGGRESSION AND THE CHILDREN

This study found further that female aggression was directed not only
against the husbands but also against the children. In a number of
cases children were hurt while trying to protect the father who was
being assaulted by the mother, for instance, by throwing themselves
between the father and the mother to stop further beating, or by
trying to warn or otherwise protect the father. In one particular case,
reported by a young respondent, the daughter had to be taken to the
hospital with bad injuries on her face, arms, and legs as a result of
her mother's violence. Apparently the six-year-old girl had run to the
window and warned the unsuspected father who was about to enter
their house, shouting "Dad don't come into the house; Morn is
waiting behind the door with an axe."

On several occasions, the abusive wife was reported to have made it
clear to the husband that if he were to defy her wishes in any way, or
to fight back or to run away, "the kids will suffer". This was one of
the reasons that forced many husbands to stay in the relationship
and tolerate violence.

WIVES' VIOLENCE

The nature and severity of women's violence against their husbands
is reported here to be either not related to a particular threat coming
from the husband or, when it does, to exceed the amount of force
necessary to repel danger imposed by the husband's action that
allegedly forced women to become violent. For instance, wives cannot
be seen as defending themselves when they force the husband to
have oral sex against his will or when they bash him for ordinary
mistakes. Similarly, they cannot be seen as defending themselves
when they inflict violence long after the husband's action was
completed and when they still remain in the place of assault after
their violent act. Hence, the findings of the present study presented
in this section do not support the notion of self-defense.
Finally, it is worth noting that, here as above, the accounts of
violence presented by mothers and children of the wives were
consistent with those of the husbands and not of the wives. This
shows that in these cases husbands were more truthful and more
credible about DV than their wives. This strengthens concerns
regarding false accusations of wives highlighted by many researchers
of DV. Beyond this it questions the adequacy and legitimacy of policy
practices, which tend to describe and judge DV on the basis of
women's accounts only.

DO WIVES HIT IN SELF-DEFENSE?

Direct questions as to whether the wife assaulted her husband to
defend herself directed to all respondents showed that none of the
husbands, 12 percent (N = 8) of the mothers, and 5 percent (N = 3)
of the children gave positive answers (see Table 2). The findings
relating to the position of the wives on self-defense is most surprising
and revealing. Relevant questioning revealed that initially all women
saw themselves as victims hitting in self-defense, a notion they
expressed when dealing with community organizations such as
women's agencies, courts, or other institutions. Yet, when asked
within this study to explain their aggression, only 47 percent (32
wives) gave self-defense as a reason. This may be explained by the
fact that these wives anticipated that their statements would be
contrasted to those of other family members and felt therefore
compelled to be careful with their statements.

However, this was not the wives' final response to the question on
self-defense. After informing these wives of the accounts of the other
family members, showing that in their view the wives had not acted
in self-defense, most wives revised their initial statement,
rationalizing in some way their violent behavior. Only nine (13
percent) of the 68 abusive wives argued to the end that there were
times when they had to apply force to defend themselves and/or
their children. The following extracts from interviews illustrate,
among other things, not only how members of the family explained
their views to the wife's violence as self-defense but also how
triangulation helped to establish evidence in areas as sensitive and as
controversial as self-defense.

Wife [First statement]: It wasn't that bad; I mean, I did not hit him
that bad, not as bad as he did anyway, and, you know, when you get
angry and you start, you know, you start hitting each other and you
don't know what will happen next and you have to defend yourself,
you don't think how hard you hit.... And he is a grown-up man and
can hurt you when he gets angry. He was unpredictable, you know,
and I had to protect myself, and my children, I might add.
Following this she was made familiar with her husband's views on this
matter, summarized in the following statement, which was read to
her by the interviewer.

Husband: It was just awful; I am not proud of myself, I would say.
But shit happens, and there is little you can do about it.... What
bothered me most was not only that she was hurting me badly but
also that she managed to convince everybody that she was the
victim, and everyone believed her, even the police. I mean,.... I am
saying, I never laid a hand on her, and how could I, ... look at me,
how could I? I never did it, but no one takes notice of me, and when
I shout at them, they do not hear my voice. What else can I do?
The reaction of the wife to this was rather strong and critical to say
the least. The following extract is characteristic of her position on this
issue:

Wife [Second statement]: That's a lie; this is his view ... what can I
say? And what can any woman say in this instance, you know what I
mean, men are men and women are women, and we have different
things to say. You would not expect him to admit guilt, would you? I
told my story to the police and they believe me, and he told them his
and they didn't believe him. They are not stupid, you know, and they
know who is lying and who is telling the truth. He is trying to protect
himself and to make me feel bad about it, and ... who knows what
else he said.... I wouldn't believe a word he said....

Following this, the wife was given the opportunity to hear what the
daughter and her mother had to say on this. The following extracts
were read to her from the researcher's notes:

Mother: ... The guy had no chance whatsoever. He could not scare a
crow, even if he wanted to. He could not frighten a baby. I suppose it
was his personality, not to mention his crook arm, he could hardly
use it.... No, he never hurt her, and she had no reason to be scared
of him. Now this self-defense thing, [pause] I don't see how this
could work under these circumstances,....

Daughter: ... No one could stand in her way. When she was angry
she was ... angry, and no one could stand in her way. When she
started shouting everyone would freeze, including Dad. Everyone
knew what was going to happen if we resisted. She was protective
and commanding, and Dad could do nothing, maybe because of his
handicap, who knows, you know his arm and his low self-esteem, and
he wouldn't raise his voice against mother, let alone his hand.... Who
could be afraid of him?

After the interviews with the family members were completed and the
discrepancies in their accounts were established, the wife was
reminded of her statement made above and was made aware of the
way her child and mother described violence in her home. To this she
responded as follows:

Wife [Third statement]: Well, it all depends on what you call
self-defense, and Jill has a different view of what danger is and of
what self-defense is, and Mom doesn't really know what it was like
living with Dave. And there are times when you have to take
responsibility and do, well, ... [brief silence] do the right thing, I
suppose, [speaking faster and louder] and my right thing is mine,
isn't it, and kids are kids. [Stopped for a moment] Literally speaking,
maybe you can't call it self-defense, literally speaking, but it could
get ugly, couldn't it.... He is a man, and things can get out of hand,
you know. But this does not mean that I was wrong.

Although the statements of family members and particularly the
wives varied in extent and strength of expression, the message
conveyed was clear and supports the main trend identified in the
overall response to the issue. The examples above present most
clearly the message conveyed by most of the respondents, as
depicted in the table above.

In summary, three major findings are most relevant here. The first is
that, as reported elsewhere (Carrado et al., 1996; Pearson, 1997a&b;
Renzetti, 1992; Sommer, 1994), the proportion of wives hitting in
self-defense is quite small, with the majority of them assaulting their
husband not in self-defense. The second is that even aggressive
wives admit that they do not hit their husband in self-defense; more
than half of the wives (53 percent) stated that they did not hit their
husband in self-defense; this proportion was later increased to 87
percent. This, apart from demonstrating that the notion of
self-defense is not based on realistic grounds, sheds serious doubts
as to the credibility of the accounts of violent women, many of whom
were found to make false allegations.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The central focus of the study was to explain whether, in its sample,
aggression by women against their husbands is assault in
self-defense or a genuine form of violence or abuse. This was
addressed by examining the nature and structure of DV by wives as
described by the spouses, their children, and maternal
mothers-in-law.

The results of the study revealed that neither the nature of the
behavior of the spouses nor the structure of the family context of
violence, nor the answers to direct questions support the defense of
self-defense. In most cases, wives assault their husbands physically
and otherwise not to defend themselves but to achieve other goals,
for example, to settle a conflict or to punish their husbands. Simply,
(a) wives assault their husbands when there is no "impending
danger" for them or the children; (b) they hit husbands who have not
been violent against them in the past; (c) they cause husbands to
live in fear of their lives and of the lives of their children; (d) not
wives but husbands leave the relationship, with the wives attempting
to force husbands to return home; and (e) the majority of abusive
wives admit that they did not hit their husbands in self-defense.
Equally important is the finding that women's allegations of DV were
proven to be false. In most cases, the initial allegations of DV were
modified considerably by them during the course of the study,
particularly when they were faced with the accounts of their children
and mothers, admitting in the end that they were neither victims of
violence nor acting in self-defense. It is worth noting that these
allegations were used--and are still used--by the authorities to
construct DV and to act upon it.

Certainly, the qualitative nature of the study and the small sample
size allow no claims of representativeness or generalizability of the
findings. Nevertheless, the study offers sufficient substance and
evidence to allow analytic or naturalistic generalizations (Blakie,
2000). Such generalizations are based on the conceptual power of
the findings derived from the fittingness and comparability of the
cases studied (Firestone, 1993; Schofield, 1993). Here it refers to the
degree of fit between the cases studied and those belonging to the
same category (other families with abused husbands). It relates also
to the degree of relevance of the findings to other similar cases. This
suggests that, given that there may be many cases of families with
aggressive wives that fit the model identified in the present study,
the findings of this study can speak also for possibly many similar
cases of violence by wives.

Hence, it is legitimate to suggest on the basis of this study that (a)
there are contexts in which the majority of aggressive wives do not
hit their husband in self-defense; (b) there are cases where women
use all forms of violence against their spouse and where their
aggression constitutes a genuine form of DV, that is, husband abuse;
(c) wives' violence against their husbands is not always a corollary of
or a precondition to wife abuse but a form of DV that exists
independently and deserves to be seen as such; and (d) many
aggressive wives make false allegations of being the victims of DV;
the fact that such allegations are taken by the authorities on their
face value, without scrutiny, makes this problem even more serious.
Within the boundaries of the study, the findings presented above
have serious implications for social policy. The popular practice by
many organizations to see aggressive wives as defending victims of
violence is highly questionable. Equally questionable is the
taken-for-granted notion of men as the natural perpetrators of
violence and of women as the victims of DV and the practice of using
women's accounts as the only credible source of information about
DV that informs social policies. In all accounts, current policies seem
to be biased toward one form of DV, which supplies the lens used to
view and explain every other form of wrongdoings in families. No
wonder that, after so many reforms, intervention programs, and
years of efforts, the extent of the problem of DV remains unchanged.
Certainly this study does not provide the solution to the problem of
aggression by wives. Nonetheless, it raises questions as to the nature
of wife-to-husband violence, and the issues that require more
attention and re-examination. It points also to possible deficiencies in
theory and policy that require re-definition and reconsideration.
Hopefully, this qualitative study will encourage further research,
which will eventually enhance our knowledge about violence by
wives, bringing our perception of DV closer to the truth.
Table 1

Marital Status of the Participants at the Time of the Interview
Marital status Males Females

N % N %

Remarried (once) 52 76.5 19 28.0
Remarried (more than once) -- -- 22 32.0
Cohabiting 5 7.0 9 * 13.0
Living alone 11 16.0 18 ** 26.0

* Five women lived in more than one cohabiting relationships before
joining this unit.

** Eleven women lived in more than one cohabiting relationships before
joining this unit.

Table 2

Do Wives Hit in Self-Defense?

            Husbands         Children         Mothers-in-Law         Wives

Yes -- 0                           5                     12                               47
No--    100                      95                   88                               53

The author thanks all those who agreed to read the article and for
their comments. A special thank you is extended to Malcolm George
for his encouragement, support, and suggestions.

NOTE
(1.) The concepts "husband abuse" and "abused husbands" are used
in general terms to describe men suffering assaults, violence, and/or
abuse by wives, as the counterparts of "wife abuse" and "abused
wives," and refer to males in dyadic relationships.
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Correspondence concerning this article should be address to Sotirios
Sarantakos, Charles Sturt University, Locked Bag 678, Wagga
Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia. Electronic mail: ss40kos@hotmail.com
SOTIRIOUS SARANTAKOS
Charles Sturt University, NSW, Australia
COPYRIGHT 2004 Men's Studies Press
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