ABSTRACT
When I was a little boy—about a week ago—I saw my share of interpersonal strife at home. I heard even more conflict than I directly observed. My dad was 18 and my mother 16 when they got married in 1931. As a four- or five-year-old, third of the first five children in phase I of my family of origin, I vividly remember worrying that my mother might die during one of my dad’s angry outbursts. The most dangerous encounter I can recall was my 28-year- old dad chasing her through an adjacent field of tall dry weeds and bruising her so badly that her arms and face were black and blue when she finally dared to come back home, shaken and traumatized.
