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Battered Wives

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Although this book is somewhat dated and things are better now than they were in the 1970s, it is still a great source about domestic violence in the US. Martin has done a great job with a sensitive subject and her writing is very powerful.

Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin (1921-2008), was, with her partner Phyllis Ann Lyon (born 1924) a feminist and gay-rights activist. They wrote the pathbreaking book, Lesbian/Woman.

She wrote in the Preface to this 1976 book, "A year ago I knew that wife-beating was a problem in some marriages. But I had no idea of the prevalence of marital violence, nor of its tacit acceptance as a part of life in so many families. Information on the subject was not readily accessible... Working on this book was a consciousness-raising experience for me... 'Battered Wives' includes the collective thoughts and concerns of a great many people."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"The economic and social structure of our present society depends upon the degradation, subjugation, and exploitation of women. Many husbands who batter their wives in anger and frustration are really striking out against a system that entraps them, too." (Pg. xvii)
"In the traditional Christian marriage ceremony, the minister warns, 'Whom therefore God has joined together let no man put asunder.' These words stand between the battered wife and any help she may seek. No one dares to interfere in the intmiate relationship between husband and wife, even when the husband's violence and the wife's danger are apparent." (Pg. 5)
"A call to the police is generally an act of desperation in an emergency. By the time the police arrive, however, the wife may be so terror-stricken---so threatened and intimidated by her husband---that she may be unable to articulate the facts about the incident and may even turn the officers away... Doubtless many women have called the police, discovered that they had inadvertently worsened their plight, and chosen to silently endure their violent husband's outbursts from that time forward." (Pg. 77)
"This kind of anxiety and discomfort (from spending the night with friends) is bad enough for one or two nights, but imagine the prospect of such a makeshift life stretching indefinitely before the woman who has naver been on her own before. Imagine her wondering how she will support herself and her children, especially if she has no work experience." (Pg. 121)
"So long as the violent man limited his threats to his family, no agency was willing to respond. Once more the door to the family home stood between society and the woman isolated with a dangerous man... presumably the threats the man made on his wife's life didn't count." (Pg. 143)