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Abstract
The prevalence of domestic violence is certainly well documented.1 While Western historical accounts of domestic violence intervention efforts focus primarily on events of the last few decades, women and men have in fact been working to eradicate intimate abuse for over 2000 years. 2 The first known tortlike remedy for domestic violence was enacted over two millennia ago, in 200 B.C.E.3 The first criminal prohibition against all domestic battering (other than in self-defense) was established in the Puritan’s Bodies of Liberties of 1641.4 But it is not until the latter part of the 20th century that one can observe a concerted global effort to address the wide-spread prevalence of domestic violence that was perhaps not present in these prior reform movements.5 However, although these more recent efforts may seem substantial, there is only minimal evidence that these reforms have yielded low prevalence rates of family violence in any significant way, at least in the United States.6 In 1993, for example, almost forty percent of all reported violent assaults against women in the United States resulted from family violence: intimate partners perpetrated approximately twenty-nine percent of reported violent assaults against women, and other relatives perpetrated an additional nine percent of violent assaults against women.
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