Family Violence

• Author: Julien D. Payne/Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 49-74

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Family Violence

A. INTRODUCTION

One of the best-kept secrets of the twentieth century was the incidence of vio-

lence in supposedly intact families. But times have changed. Family violence

is now recognized as a serious social and legal problem that encompasses

the abuse of elderly parents or grandparents as well as spousal and child

abuse. In the words of MacDonald J, of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, in

MAB v LAB, 2013 NSSC 89 at para 12, online at canlii.org:

Domestic violence most commonly refers to a situation where an adult

intimate or former intimate partner attempts by psychological, physical,

nancial or sexual means to coerce, dominate or control the other. This

violence reveals a pattern of conduct that may be verbal, physical or sexual.

The conduct targets another person’s self-esteem and emotional well-being.

It can include humiliating, belittling, denigrating, intimidating, controlling

or isolating behaviour. It can include physical assaults, sexual assaults, sex-

ual humiliation, sleep deprivation, extortion, economic coercion, threats to

harm or kill, destruction of property, threatened or attempted suicide, litiga-

tion harassment and litigation tactics, manipulation of children, of relatives,

of investigation agencies and helping personnel, surveillance, monitoring,

and stalking. The abuse and violence in intimate partnerships has a com-

plex reciprocal dynamic not found in violence that occurs between strangers.

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B. SPOUSAL ABUSE

Although the expression “spousal abuse” has been traditionally conned

to persons who are married, it is also frequently used to refer to conduct

between divorced spouses or persons living in a cohabitational relationship

or an intimate partnership. To avoid undue repetition, the word “spouse” is

often used in the following analysis to include unmarried cohabitants and

other intimate partners. This is especially true in the Questions and Answers

section in this chapter. There is also a necessary “gender bias” in the analysis

because spousal abuse that triggers legal consequences typically results from

an act of violence perpetrated by a male person upon his female partner.

Spousal abuse takes various forms, but all involve domination or the

improper exercise of power or control over a spouse, divorced spouse, or

quasi- marital partner. Spousal abuse may involve physical, sexual, psycho-

logical, or economic oppression.

Physical abuse involves the application of force. It includes beating, slap-

ping, punching, kicking, choking, stabbing, shooting, and throwing objects

at the victim. Even when physical assaults are intermittent or isolated, they

may have a long-term impact because the threat of repetition is never far

from the victim’s mind. Domination established through a single act of vio-

lence can produce long-term emotional abuse that is reinforced by subse-

quent threats, isolation, degradation, or economic control.

Sexual abuse is an aspect of physical abuse that involves the perpetration

of sexual acts against the will of a spouse or an intimate partner. The fact

that a couple is married or living together does not entitle either of them to

insist that their partner engage in any form of sexual activity.

Emotional or psychological abuse most frequently arises from verbal

assaults, such as threats or disparaging comments directed towards a spouse.

Emotional abuse often accompanies physical or sexual abuse but can exist

in the absence of physical or sexual abuse. Emotional abuse signies that

one party demeans, belittles, degrades, or threatens the other party to such

a degree that the victim’s psychological well-being is in jeopardy.

Economic abuse arises from an improper exercise of control over per-

sonal or household nances by one spouse to the exclusion and deprivation

of the other.

Spousal abuse is not conned to any age group or socio-economic class.

Many victims of spousal abuse suer in silence. Consequently, statistics on

spousal abuse are notoriously speculative.