St. Thomas Law Review
First Page
791
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Domestic violence is a serious problem in the United States. It has been the subject of significant legal responses, yet domestic violence remains a very substantial and widespread social dilemma in America. Most of the legal responses suffer from two significant flaws. First, they are based on a clearly erroneous assumption that marriage is the primary environment of risk. Second, they focus on protection and punishment rather than prevention. In fact, the relationship between marriage and domestic violence is much more complex than some conventional commentary has recognized. Explanations for why married women and their children are less often victims of domestic violence identify the insulating effects of bonding, identification, and investment. While a strong protective, punitive and compensatory legal response to domestic violence is necessary to protect persons in seriously dysfunctional and dissolving marriages, marriage in general is the safest environment for women when it comes to risk of domestic violence. Likewise, marriage education and marital skills training appears to have great potential to significantly reduce the level and rate of domestic violence with fewer incidental social costs than conventional negative legal and social strategies. Part II of this article briefly notes the multiple meanings of "domestic violence" in the American legal system, and reviews the evidence of the seriousness, magnitude, and significance of the ongoing problem of domestic violence in America. In Part III, the various protective, punitive, and remedial legal responses to domestic violence are described. The inadequacies and problems of those current legal responses are reviewed in Part IV. Next, the substantial potential that positive preventative programs such as marriage preparation, education, skills training, and marital counseling hold to overcome and reduce the social problem of domestic violence is noted in Part V. A concluding summary and comment is provided in Part VI.
Recommended Citation
Lynn D. Wardle,
Marriage and Domestic Violence in the United States: New Perspectives about Legal Strategies to Combat Domestic Violence,
15
St. Thomas L. Rev.
791
(2003).
Available at:
https://scholarship.stu.edu/stlr/vol15/iss4/3