The female is, as it were, a mutilated…a sort of natural deficiency. It is not appropriate in a female character to be manly or clever. The male is by nature superior and the female inferior." Domestic violence has been present in our society and an accepted practice of many cultures for hundreds of years. Up until the late 1800's, a man in this country had the right to chastise his wife until the practice was declared illegal in two states (Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence Manual, p. B-8). Old English Common Law allowed husbands to beat their wives provided that the stick they used was not thicker than his thumb; hence the phrase "Rule of Thumb"(Heart on a Chain [Video]). Although times have changed in this regard and laws have been enacted in order to protect women from abuse, the fact remains that acts of domestic violence occur every 15 seconds in the United States. Over the past two decades, extensive research has been done on the dynamics of domestic violence. Through this research, many of the aspects of domestic violence are better understood. Various researchers have theorized the causal mechanism behind domestic violence, have studied the characteristics of both the female

Sociobiological theorists would explain that the function of marital violence can be found in the potential purpose of coercive control in marriages which can be viewed as being motivated by the male need to guarantee his paternity by ensuring compliance through power and control (Kashani Allan, 1998). Child witnesses of violence between parents who were also physically and sexually abused were found to have more behavioral problems than those witnesses who were not abused (Peled, et al. Additionally, with respect to women experiencing violence, Harway (1993) relates the Theory of Learned Helplessness to the Social Learning Theory and how it may explain the passive nature of battered women. 8 of men and 32 of women have had memories of their fathers physically abusing their mothers. The Duluth Model is based solely on the power and control mechanism and has become the theory most widely used for understanding domestic violence. These maternal tendencies might also prevent their children from establishing a meaningful context for understanding the abuse and may provide, especially for their daughters, a model of passive and ineffective problem solving. During the loving phase, the batterer's calmness, sensitivity, and behavior serve to relieve the woman's fears, temporarily. Additionally, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence takes a powerful stance on the issue of couples counseling. Alcohol has been found to be present in almost half of all reported incidents of wife assaults. Third, this paper will also present approaches to intervention strategies used with family members involved in violence.