Abused women less likely to be involved in stable
relationships
Poor women who have been physically or sexually abused in
their lives are less likely to maintain stable intimate relationships,
according to a new study of more than 2,500 women by researchers
from The Johns Hopkins University and Penn State University.
The women involved in the study said they want fair treatment
and companionship from their partners, according to the sociologists
at Johns Hopkins and Penn State. But when it
came to actually getting married or living with a man, many
of those who had been abused as adults decided—at least for
now—to just say “no.” On the other hand, those who were sexually abused
in childhood were not as likely to avoid relationships altogether;
rather, they tended to engage in a series of short-term, transient
relationships, many of them abusive.
While there is no evidence that abuse rates have increased,
the number of women postponing intimate relationships, such
as marriage or cohabitation, may be on the rise, said Andrew
Cherlin, the Griswold Professor of Public Policy at Johns Hopkins
and lead author of the report, The Influence of Physical and Sexual Abuse
on Marriage and Cohabitation, which was published in the
January 21 issue of American
Sociological Review.
“What’s changed over the past few decades is the social
context of abuse,” Cherlin said.
“Women don’t have to stay with abusive men anymore because
they have alternatives to marriage.”
The researchers, working in Boston, Chicago,
and San
Antonio as part of the long-term research project called “Welfare,
Children and Families: A
Three-City Study,” surveyed a random sample of 2,402 Hispanic,
black, and white women. Ethnographic
research teams studied another 256 women in-depth for several
years, observing day-to-day activities and conducting repeated
interviews. All the women
studied were the primary caregivers of at least one child.
Fifty-two percent of women in the random-sample survey reported
being physically or sexually abused at some point during their
lives. Twenty-four percent
said they were sexually abused during childhood or adolescence. Forty-two percent of women who had never been
abused were married at the time of the survey, compared to 22
percent of women who had ever been abused.
Of the 256 women studied in-depth, one-sixth—man of whom
had been physically abused as adults—said they were taking a
timeout from intimate relationships with men.
“Women’s decision to take a timeout from such relationships
is an important one for policymakers to understand,” said co-author
Linda Burton, director of the ethnographic component and Penn State professor of human development and sociology. “These women are not saying they will never
enter intimate relationships again, but, rather, they need recovery
and reflection time from abuse they experienced as adults to
avoid entering a subsequent abusive relationship.”
Cherlin and Burton suggest that reducing levels of sexual abuse and physical
violence in families could increase the number of healthy, stable,
long-term unions. They
argue that current marriage promotion policy debates at the
federal and state levels, which tend to blame declining cultural
values or unemployment for lower marriage rates among the poor,
should also focus on the consequences of abuse.
--Michael
Levin-Epstein
National Bulletin on Domestic Violence
Prevention
March, 2005
Michael
Levin-Epstein is a freelance writer and lawyer who worked as
a managing editor at the Bureau of National Affairs Inc. for
20 years. He is a member
of the Maryland and Washington, D.C., bars.
The
article appearing above was used with permission from Quinlan
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