ABSTRACT
While violence takes its toll across the life span, this chapter’s focus on abuse and battery of female intimate partners (most often in a publicly recognized marital relationship) is pivotal in its illustration of the interconnections between different forms of interpersonal violence. Women who are verbally and physically abused by their male partners are frequently raped as well. Traditionally, across cultures, marital rape has not been recognized as a legal entity, on the assumption that husbands’ sexual access to wives is an entitlement regardless of the wife’s consent. Legal and feminist advocacy has changed that situation for married women in some countries.
