Cynicism about marriage and family: responding to a comment on spousal abuse.

(This was originally posted as a response to Dan's comment, but I figured that I'd repost it as a story to prevent it from getting hidden)

I agree that spousal abuse is disturbing, but this issue can also be tossed in as another of the reasons that men might be cynical about marriage.

The president of the American Psychological Association published an article in 2006 entitled Psychological science is not politically correct. He notes:

Several studies of domestic violence have suggested that males and females in relationships have an equal likelihood of acting out physical aggression, although differing in tactics and potential for causing injury (e.g., women assailants will more likely throw something, slap, kick, bite, or punch their partner, or hit them with an object, while males will more likely beat up their partners, and choke or strangle them).

Take a look at the updated version of a 2004 journal paper. The abstract of the paper:

This bibliography examines 219 scholarly investigations: 170 empirical studies and 49 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 221,300.

Yet, there are shelters for battered, abused women but no equivalent for men to head to in such instances. In addition, women are able to initiate divorce in such instances.

(You could also examine the "female sentencing discount" when wives kill husbands as opposed to the other way around, but that's still another story)