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Partner Abuse Theories

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Partner Abuse Theories
"Male Violence: A Room Full of Men" is a documentary that centers around male individuals who are mentally, physically, and verbally abusive towards their partners. According to the textbook, "partner abuse is defined as any intentional act or series of acts that cause injury to the partner. These acts may be physical, emotional, or sexual" (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p.223). In the text, there are six theories of partner abuse: social stress, power, dependency, alcohol, pregnancy, and marriage (Wallace &Roberson, 2014 p.225-227).
These theories were created as hypothesis in order to find out why domestic violence occurs (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p.225). The first theory, social stress happens between the members of a family (Wallace & Roberson,
…show more content…
Younger pregnant females will encounter partner abuse more than older pregnant one's (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p. 227). Last but not least in the theories of partner abuse, marriage. Although this section does not go into detail about domestic violence in marriages, it does speak about abuse in common-law house holds (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p. 227) What happens in this scenario is that before the two get married, "they become isolated from their loved ones such as friends and family" (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p.227). Autonomy and control is when partners believe that they do not need to be married in order to express their love for one another (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p. 227). They think that they will be free not knowing that abuse can still happen in their household (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p.227). Investment in the relationship is when the partners know how to press each others buttons and may end up becoming abusive towards each other (Wallace & Roberson, 2014, p. …show more content…
Many believe that the abuser is mentally ill but most times, that is not true. How one was raised and what they have witnessed in their households growing up are possible reasons to why they repeat the same offense with their partners. Colleen Croft also shot down the theory of domestic violence occurring in households due to heavy alcohol intake when that is not true either. My reaction to her statement was utter shock. I have never witnessed domestic violence but after reading so many articles about it, I always thought that it happened due to drunkenness. I never realized that the abuser does not beat his neighbor or boss while drunk, but he chooses to beat his wife. One of the men from the male violence support group said in his interview that he was very unhappy and suffered from insecurities so he counted on his wife to make him feel better about himself. When she failed to help him build his self esteem, he would beat

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