Saving the family: Reasons why battered wives stay.

What is abuse? Webster defines it is as to use wrongly or improperly; to treat in a

harmful or injurious manner. Defining wife abuse or wife battering is not easy. For
starters, whom are we thinking of when we use the word wife? In fact, any woman who
maintains an intimate relationship with her husband could become a battered or abused
wife. The words abused or battered which are used here do not refer to the normal
conflict and stress that occur in all close relationships, but rather to the violence that can
cause serious injury and death. For battered women, home is a place of greater danger
than public places more dangerous than the workplace, more dangerous than the
highway, more dangerous than city streets, physical abuse consists of anything that one
person do to another that causes physical pain. So why do people stay in an abusive
relationship? The reasons may not be acceptable to everyone but according to mental
health experts, there are specific reasons why people stay in an abusive relationship. To
many onlookers it seems simple; if a woman is being abuse, she should just get up and
go, or throw her abuser out. A woman may feel that being separated is wrong and that she
should keep her marriage together at all cost. They may be abused but for sake of their
children theyll do everything. Therefore, battered wives prefer to stay just to save her
family and feels that her children need a father.
This paper presents the discussion on Saving the family: Reasons why battered
wives stay. The first part tells about the behavior of a battered wife on how they react