Summary: | In an interdisciplinary analysis, Margareta Hydén highlights the nature of women's abuse, the social organization of marriage, gender relations, and human nature itself, in ways that go beyond the discourse of victims and survivors of violence. Hydén examines the act of woman battering from three distinct perspectives: the male perpetrator, the female victim, and the couple engaged in the joint project of marriage. The two major issues discussed are, first, the identification and description of the distinctive features of battering as it appears and is committed by men against women in marital life; and, second, the understanding of how the individuals involved define, interpret, explain and try to justify this act. Woman Battering as Marital Act is a powerful analysis of this prevalent crime that serves to reshape our understanding of why battered women often remain in their violent marriages.
|