The Multiple Forms of Aggressiveness Between Marital Partners: How Do We Identify Them?

One of the difficulties in conducting research that compares violent to nonviolent marriages, is determining exactly which couples are violent and what is the direction of that violence: husband‐to‐wife, wife‐to‐husband, or bi‐directional. To illustrate this problem, data on the incidence of violence in 103 couples are presented, based on wife's report only, husband's report only, or both spouses' reports. Incidence figures based on the report of either spouse were approximately 100% higher than the incidence based on agreements between spouses. Although slightly more wives than husbands reported severe husband‐to‐wife aggression, other forms of aggression were reported by more husbands than wives. Discussion focuses on the limitations of frequency data, alone, in assessing marital violence.