Domestic violence and emotional abuse are behaviors used

by one person in a relationship to control the other.

Partners may be married or not married; heterosexual,

gay, or lesbian; living together, separated or dating.

Some examples of abuse include, name calling or put-downs

,keeping a partner from contacting their family or

friends ,withholding money, stopping a partner from

getting or keeping a job ,actual or threatened physical

harm ,sexual assault ,stalking , and last but not least

intimidation.Studies show that about one in every ten

women are abused every year by the man with whom they

live. Thousands of children grow up in families in which

their fathers control behavior by physical force. Family

violence is a major problem in this country; It exists

and strikes at the very heart of our society. All family

members are vulnerable from infants to grandparents and

including adults and children of all ages. The sad fact

is that you are more likely to be physically assaulted,

beaten, killed, or sexually attacked in your own home at

the hands of a loved one. The problem for such violence

includes, physical, and sexual violence. Women mostly

suffered from these categories, because all include

action that causes pain or injury( Berger 35-36).

One common form of abuse in marriage is sexual abuse.

The fact of the matter is that many married women are raped

by a spouse, but most are reluctant to come forth and talk

about it. Most wives would resist calling it rape, thinking

that rape is unwanted sexual experience between strangers.

Women raped by husbands are traumatized at the most basic

level. At the very least, the rape undermines the husband -

wife relationship. Even more important, the violation of a

woman s body can lead to serious psychological harm. An

attack can destroy a woman s trust in others and leave her

feeling even more powerless and isolated than if raped by a

stranger. Although it is difficult to completely describe

the man who abuses his spouse, most important is the matter

of size. men who batter their wives are on average

forty-five pounds heavier and taller than their victims. The

men are more likely to have had experience in fighting,

having been taught that it is manly to fight. Men who abuse

their partners generally show lack of responsibility for

their own actions. Many men have difficulty dealing with

independent women while trying to play the traditional male

role they feel is expected of them. Men strive to control

women by various means and with varying degrees of success.

Child abuse is another aspect of domestic violence that

is often overlooked due to the fact that most people think

domestic violence is between a man and a woman. One in three

girls and one in five boys are sexually abused by an adult

at some time during their childhood. Most sexual abusers are

someone in the family or someone the child knows. Families

with four or more children have higher rates of abuse and

neglect, especially if their living conditions are crowded

or they live in isolated areas. More than eighty percent of

abusers are a parent or someone close to a child. Child

abuse is far more likely to occur in the child s home than

in a day care center. One in thirteen kids with a parent on

drugs is physically abused regularly. One out of ten babies

born today are born to mothers who are abusing drugs. The

sexual abuse of children, like the abuse of women, has

occurred in every society. There is good reason to believe

that there is less sexual exploitation of children in

western society than has existed in earlier societies. The

sexual abuse of children happens in settings where the

potential abuser has the opportunity to be alone with a

child. Accusations of child abuse have been made in child

custody disputes and day care centers and nursery schools

where the potential abuser has little opportunity for

ongoing contact alone with the child(Gardner).Parents and

guardians abuse children, because the youngsters fail to

meet the demands of adults. Others are too immature to care

about the harm to the child. A lack or loss of income often

creates tension, and some parents react by beating their

children.