Citation

Hydén M. J. Fam. Violence 1995; 10(1): 55-71.

Affiliation

Department of Social Work, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF02110537

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article is concerned with the association between verbal aggression and woman battering in marriage. This relationship was examined using narrative accounts from twenty couples, in which the woman was the victim and the man the perpetrator of assault or aggravated assault. In 18 of the cases the informants described the pre-history of violence as a verbal fight, the basic communicative message of which can be described in terms of an endeavor to communicate worthlessness to one's opponent. The men's descriptions revealed that they (1) used violence for putting a stop to the verbal fight, or (2) used violence as a part of the verbal fight for the same goal of communicating worthlessness as the use of words. In two cases, this clear and chronologically close relationship between verbal aggression and physical violence was lacking. In these two cases, the men used violence to revenge themselves for the injustices they had earlier suffered at the hands of the women in the marriage.