The Status of Women,Marital Equality,and Violence Against Wives

In the last decade, important progress has been made toward understanding the social causes of wife-beating. However, the research has remained almost entirely on the individual or interpersonal level of analysis. This article focuses on women's status at the societal level and marital inequality and violence, which are interpersonal-level variables. Based on data from a number of national surveys, the contextual analysis suggests that the degree to which marital inequality is associated with wife-beating is affected by the context of sexual inequality. Violence against wives is most severe in families that reside in states where the general status of women is fairly high relative to men, but in which the husband still dominates within the home.