ABSTRACT
Over half of American couples experience one or more incidents of assault between the partners during the course of a marriage. The rates of desistance and escalation among these couples can be compared with the rates among couples without intervention. The findings confirmed the hypothesis, which specified a high rate of desistance, even for husbands who had frequently used severe violence. Intervention might involve reduction of stress, provision of social and material support, and efforts to increase equality between spouses and change values that tolerate minor violence. The link between "minor" violence and "severe" violence is a controversial aspect of research on family violence. It would be useful to specifically know whether reducing minor assaults could reduce the likelihood of major violence. Experiments could be done involving intervention with couples reporting minor violence. Divorce and separation are important causes of sample attrition, and divorce and separation are known to be associated with marital violence.
