above the median on a post-traumatic stress symptom list, as compared with 37% of those experiencing situational couple violence. Turning to causes, we can begin with the dramatic gender effects found by Johnson () in the Pittsburgh data: almost all (97%) of the intimate terrorism was perpetrated by men, but close to half of the situational couple violence was perpetrated by women. Sugarman and () meta-analysis of the literature on the relationship between Frankel’s gender traditionalism and intimate partner violence found a strong relationship (d = .80) for samples likely to be dominated by intimate terrorism, and a small and negative relationship for samples likely to be dominated by situational couple violence (d = -.14). What about marriage; is it a license to hit? Macmillan and Gartner (), using 1993 Canadian Violence Against Women Survey data on married and cohabiting partners, found a strong positive relationship between marriage and intimate terrorism (b = .58), but a strong and negative relationship with situational couple violence (b = -.62). Evidently for some men marriage is a license to use violence to control, but married couples are less likely than cohabiting couples to have their arguments escalate to violence. Finally, dramatic differences are found for so-called intergenerational transmission. Stith et () meta-analysis of this large literature found a moderate al.’s relationship between childhood experiences of family violence and of men’s perpetration intimate partner violence, but only for samples likely to be dominated by intimate terrorism (d = .35). For samples likely to be dominated by situational couple violence, the relationship was minimal (d = .11).
above the median on a post-traumatic stress symptom list, as compared with 37% of those experiencing situational couple violence. Turning to causes, we can begin with the dramatic gender effects found by Johnson () in the Pittsburgh data: almost all (97%) of the intimate terrorism was perpetrated by men, but close to half of the situational couple violence was perpetrated by women. Sugarman and Frankel’s () meta-analysis of the literature on the relationship between gender traditionalism and intimate partner violence found a strong relationship (d = .80) for samples likely to be dominated by intimate terrorism, and a small and negative relationship for samples likely to be dominated by situational couple violence (d = -.14). What about marriage; is it a license to hit? Macmillan and Gartner (), using 1993 Canadian Violence Against Women Survey data on married and cohabiting partners, found a strong positive relationship between marriage and intimate terrorism (b = .58), but a strong and negative relationship with situational couple violence (b = -.62). Evidently for some men marriage is a license to use violence to control, but married couples are less likely than cohabiting couples to have their arguments escalate to violence. Finally, dramatic differences are found for so-called intergenerational transmission. Stith et al.’s () meta-analysis of this large literature found a moderate relationship between childhood experiences of family violence and men’s perpetration of intimate partner violence, but only for samples likely to be dominated by intimate terrorism (d = .35). For samples likely to be dominated by situational couple violence, the relationship was minimal (d = .11).