to men, "our culture continues to exhibit a hierarchy of power arranged by gender. Men overwhelmingly occupy positions of greater influence, control, and prestige in economic, political, and social domains" (Birns, Cascardi, & Meyer, 1994, p. 50).
Despite some evidence which may indicate a decline in domestic violence, it is still a common occurrence, and the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that between 1.8 million and 4 million women are assaulted annually in the United States (Vobejda, 1994, p. 32). According to the exhaustive study of fatal violence which occurred among spouses in the decade between 1976 and 1985 (Mercy & Saltzman, 1989), wives were 1.3 times more likely to be killed than husbands, with white wives at substantially greater risk than black wives (p. 595).
The bulk of contemporary research into spouse abuse deals with the response of the criminal justice system--police, prosecutors, and courts--to the problem, in particular, of wife abuse. Various examinations of police interventions and legal reactions have been conducted,
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