It may be pointed out, however, that while the simple tally of violent acts might be similar, studies show that men's violence usually does much more damage than women's
1; women are much more likely to be injured and/or hospitalized, wives are much more likely to be killed by their husbands than the reverse, and women in general are more likely to be killed by their spouse than by all other types of assailants combined.
2 In their study of severely violent couples, Neil Jacobson and John Gottman
3 conclude that the
frequency of violent acts is not as crucial as the impact of the violence and its function, when trying to understand spousal abuse; specifically, they state that the purpose of battering is to control and intimidate, rather than just to injure.