Kærlighedens ofre

- om udforskningen af hustruvold

Abstract

This article is treating a particular field of woman's studies, the study of Wife Abuse. Preliminarily the legal and social status of wife abuse is described, through history and today. Next is shown the interconnection between the study of wife abuse and woman's
lib., and the two dominant schools, one attached to radical feminism and one to the sociology of the family. The author's study of abused wives in a major shelter of Copenhagen is then described, the method as well as the main results of the study. The various attempts in the litterature to explain wife abuse is critically examined in the foliowing part, theories about the causes of the husbands violence as well as about the staying of the wife. Based partly on this criticism, partly on the author's own study and partly on the author's general theoretical frame of reference, inspired by Leontjew, amore comprehensive analysis is made about the phenomenon of wife abuse. Based on this analysis as well as the author's model of personality the development in personality during the stay in the shelter is described, and for the women not helped through this stay alone a program for a family therapy is sketched. The article is terminated by an attempt to describe the study of wife abuse as a characteristic example of woman's studies in general.