15 women were waiting at the door (Vobejda, 1994, p. 32). And this was some four years after the first ever shelter, in London, England, had been opened (Binder & Meeker, 1992, p. 9).
In 1994, the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson "has elevated domestic violence to a new level on the national consciousness, changing forever . . . the way it is viewed by the public" (Vobejda, 1994, p. 32). Finally, perhaps, not only the public, but the police, prosecutors, legislators, and the courts as well will finally begin to comprehend that "between one-fifth and one-third of all women will be physically assaulted by a partner or ex-partner during their lifetime" (Birns, Cascardi, & Meyer, 1994, p. 50).
Frank and Golden (1992) express the concern that a majority of men are raised to believe that "it is justifiable and appropriate" to abuse women and that women raised "in the same atmosphere share these beliefs" (p. 5). They elaborate further:
Societally and culturally, abuse of women has been condoned and sanctioned as men abuse their power to control what they believe to be theirs. Because the structure of our patriarchal history has supported the concept of male entitlement vis a vis wives, all women have been and continue to remain at risk of coupling with an abuser (Frank & Golden, 1992, p. 5).
Wife abuse, as seen from a feminist perspective (such as Frank and Golden express), results directly from "the power imbalance between men and women" (Birns, Cascardi, & Meyer, 1994, p. 50).
In this context, the ill treatment of women has been reinforced by ancient legal doctrines which equated women with various chattels, as well as legal sanctions condoning the use of force against wives. According to Kurz (1992), the Supreme Court of Mississippi, in 1824, ruled that a husband may "exercise the right of moderate chastisement in cases of great emergency" (p. 27). Despite the fact that women are no longer legally subordinate...