Wife's Marital Dependency and Wife Abuse

Data from a nationally representative sample of 2, 143 adult men & women were used to explore the relationship between wives' dependency on marriage and wife abuse. While family violence researchers have posited such a relationship, it has not been empirically demonstrated. The independent variables were indexes of wives' objective (economic) and subjective (perceived) marital dependency. The dependent variables assessed the presence of acts of physical aggression toward wives that carried a high risk of serious injury (severe violence) and those that did not carry such a risk (minor violence). Both dimensions of dependency were positivelyv related to abuse. However, wives'subjective marital dependency was significantly related to minor, but not severe violence, and wives' objective marital dependencv tbllowed the opposite pattern. These results indicate that it is economic and not psychological dependency which keeps women in severely abusive marriages.