The Influence of Physical and Sexual Abuse on Marriage and Cohabitation

Abstract

Using ethnographic and survey data on low-income families residing in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio, we examine the relationship between women's patterns of union formation and their experience of physical and sexual abuse. Both sets of data suggest that women who have been physically or sexually abused are substantially less likely to be married or to be in stable, long-term cohabiting relationships. The data also suggest that the timing and different forms of abuse may have distinctive associations with union formation. Women who have experienced abuse beginning in childhood, particularly sexual abuse, are less likely to be in sustained marriages or stable cohabiting relationships and instead are more likely to experience transitory unions: multiple short-term, mostly cohabiting unions with brief intervals between them. Women who have not been abused in childhood but experience adult physical abuse, however, are less likely to be in either a marriage or a cohabiting union, long-term or transitory; and some have withdrawn from having relationships with men. The relevance of these findings for the decline of marriage among low-income women and men is discussed.

Relationship Violence and Psychological Distress Among Low-income Urban Women

“…Women who experience relationship violence are more often young than old, black than white or Hispanic, less educated than well educated, unemployed than employed, on welfare than off, single than married, and with children than without. [2][3][4][5]6,8,35,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] These same general patterns also tend to hold for psychological distress. 43,44 In accordance with prior research, subsequent analyses include controls for age (in years), race (non-Hispanic white, Mexican, and other Hispanic compared with black), education (in years), employment status (1 = worked for pay in past week), current welfare status (1 = currently receiving welfare), marital status (1 = married and living with spouse), cohabiting status (1 = cohabiting, not married), and number of children (1 to 5 or more).…”

The Transcendence of Violence Across Relationships: New Methods for Understanding Men’s and Women’s Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence Across the Life Course

“…First, the contemporary era is characterized by increased relationship instability, heighted likelihoods of divorce, and the emergence of cohabitation as a routine relationship form in early adulthood (Cherlin 2009). Given this, it seems possible that IPV in one relationship may cause people to retreat from particular relationships given earlier negative experiences.…”

“…In another respect, IPV may increase retreat from relationships altogether. Recent research on low-income women from Boston, Chicago and San Antonio indicates that experiences with intimate partner violence not only increase the likelihood of separation or divorce, but also decrease the likelihood of entering into subsequent relationships, at least for a period of time (Cherlin et al 2004). Although such findings have not been subject to replication, they still suggest that IPV may be an important aspect of broad processes of relationship and family formation and have consequent implications for changing risks for IPV.…”

“…At the same time, the field, both theoretically and methodologically, has focused more attention on trajectories rather than transitions and has almost exclusively examined criminal offending rather than criminal victimization. Still, issues of transitions and victimization are central features of studies of intimate partner violence (hereafter IPV) given that such work highlights the life course and relationship contexts of victimization and raises important questions about relationships, transitions, and victimization risk among men and women (Carbone-Lopez et al 2006;Cherlin et al 2004;Kruttschnitt and Macmillan 2006). Yet, we know of no work that systematically evaluates these issues, particularly with nationally representative samples and appropriate statistical techniques that simultaneously models victimization within and across intimate relationships and does so with attention to the widely recognized multidimensional and multifaceted character of IPV (Johnson 1995;Kruttschnitt and Macmillan 2006;Macmillan and Gartner 1999).…”

The Roles of Instability and Housing in Low-Income Families’ Residential Mobility

“…It is interesting to highlight that experiences of childhood domestic violence continued to be a significant predictor of mobility above and beyond recent experiences of IPV and instability. Childhood violence may set mothers on trajectories of instability across multiple domains of life, with long term repercussions for women and their families (Lawson Clark et al 2011;Cherlin et al 2004). …”