It takes a lot of courage for a man to admit his wife repeatedly assaults him.

Most people laugh at the very idea.

Yet there may be as many as 10 million battered husbands in the U.S.

It as a classic case of spouse abuse.

A New York banker was divorcing his second wife. The testimony revealed the shocking facts of 14 years of regular beatings and abuse. The disgusted judge described the acts as "vicious physical violence.

The Court saw scars and bruises including laceration marks on a car caused by teeth. During one assault both eyes were blackened shut and during another incident, one eve was so grievously injured that doctors feared it might be lost.

It was a classic case of spouse abuse except for one thing -- the victim was a man and the attacker a woman. The idea that husband beating is a serious problem in this country is difficult for many people to accept yet it’s been called by one expert." The most under-reported crime in America today."

Only a minute number of this case ever get on the records. The reason is simple. It takes a great deal of courage for a battered man to talk into a police station and stand before a burly desk sergeant and say" I want to report that my wife beat me up." But in recent months there are indications that more battered men are willing to come out of the closet.

Last July, The Mayor’s Task Force on Rape set up crisis centers at Queens General Hospital, Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, Harlem Hospital and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Staten Island. There expected calls from rape victims and battered women. They were startled when they all began getting calls from battered men.

"I was very surprised when I received my first call from a man," said Joella Fucntes a social worker at the Task Force’s King County, Hospital Crisis Center. "As soon as I heard the tone of his voice, I know he was serious."

Paulette Owens, director of the Task Force, related: "From the beginning we had battered men coming into our program and we never really expected them. We get a lot of anonymous phone calls. Most men, like women, won’t admit it happened to them. Because of the difference in physical size, a man will stay there and take abuse until he is hurt so badly that he needs real medical help. Some of our people have been hit with baseball bats, others have had their jaws broken."

One of the battered men who turned to the Task Force for help is John S., a 34-year-old maintenance worker from Brooklyn. He endured many beatings, one of which hospitalized him. "She started hitting me about a your after we were married. She’d get into a rage and come after me. Sober. She was mad because things weren’t being done her way. She is smaller than I am, but when she gets mad she has double strength. She would lash out and I used to try and pin her arms back but it’s hard because she gets so strong. I was chased with a 12-inch carving knife. She chased me right out of the house. I’ve been beaten with vases, pots and pans."

One Sunder morning I was standing before the bedroom mirror brushing my hair. My wife came up beside me and asked what I intended to do with my day. I said I’d probably use it to finish a home-repair job. She slapped me hard, lunged and clawed four beautiful fingernail scratches down the side of my face, drawing blood.

"My reaction was more bafflement and hurt that anger. There had been no reason for this attack.

"At work, he is I would about getting caught in the rose bushes, my associates knew fingernail marks when they saw them and to my humiliation, let me know they understood the real cause."

No one knows for sure how many battered men there are in America today. The estimate range from 12 million to 280.000 but the research seems to consistently favor the higher projections.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NUBH) sponsored a family violence study involving 2,143 families. The team of sociologists who conducted the survey concluded: "The amount of violence between members of the same family is extremely high so high that the researchers conclude that physical violence occurs between family members more often than it occurs between any other individuals or in any other setting except for wars and riots."

Dr. Murray Straus, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire and project leader of the NHMH study, reported that slightly over one out of six couples – an estimated 7.5 million couples – had a violent episode during the survey year.

"Taking the entire duration of the marriage the figure is over one quarter of all American couples (28%) or about 13 million couples."

This same study also shows that the frequency for violence is about equal for both men and women. The researchers defined a "violent episode" as "any act intended to cause physical pain or injury to the husband or wife ranging from slapping to beating up."

How accurate is this survey? According to Straus calculations, there is a 95% chance that, if the entire U.S. population had been interviewed, the number of husbands and wives admitting to using physical force on once another would fall between 26 and 30%.

"However, that assumes there was no under-reporting," Dr. Straus warned. Both he and his co-researcher, Dr. Richard Gelles of the University of Rhode Island, feel under-reporting did occur in the survey, especially in the most serious types of violence. Dr. Straus observed: "The figures could easily be twice as large…some where around 50 or 60% of all couples have hit each other at least one.

"Even more startling is the act that almost 4% had gone so far as to have actually used a knife or gun in attacking their husbands or wives," Dr. Staus said. "This means that of the 47.5 million couples living together in the United States, about 1.7 million had at some time faced a husband or wife wielding a knife or gun."

A study done last year on spouse battering by the Victims Information Bureau of Suffolk County, reported: "Of those who hit their spouses, 48% are men and 52% are women. Of those respondents stating they had been hit by their spouse, 50% are men."

Another study conducted by Dr. Straus in 1974, involving 385 couples, showed little difference in the frequency with which husbands and wives used violence.
However, that study shows women to be more frequent users of physical aids in their assaults, throwing things, or hitting with an object," Dr. Straus said. "We take this as indicating that women are no less predisposed to violence than are men."

The Census Bureau reports that there are about 47.5 million married couples. This figure does not include divorced persons or those still married but not living together. If you take the might estimates that 60 million people hitting each other, at least 10 to 12 million of those on the receiving end are men. Of course, if you add in divorced people and those in the process of getting a divorce – two extremely high-violence groups – the numbers would go even higher.

But, regardless of the numbers involved, the true horror of husband beating is made clear when you hear the stories the victims tell.

Bob J. is a New York contractor. He and his bride came to America from Italy "The beatings began about four months after we arrived in America," he said in his thick accent. "She beat me for eight years all the time. I never hit her. I could have broken every bone in her body but you don’t do it. You don’t hit a woman. If you got children at home, if you show to them violence it’s very bad. I love my kids and I don’t want the kids to say Papa is no good."

To most people, Dad would seem to be an unlikely victim because he runs counter to the Caspar Milque toast stereotype. He is a strong man who does hard physical work. He and his wife both come from the old country where men are macho and women are glad of it – or that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Stereotypical thinking, in fact, plays a big role in why some people are surprised to learn that the crime of husband beating even exists.

Some of the marital situations, which are, fettle grounds for husband battering includes. A big man married to a small man: a middle aged woman married to an elderly man: a healthy woman married to a physically handicapped man: a healthy woman married to a very sick man.

In all of these cases, the traditional roles are often reversed and the woman becomes the stronger, more dominant member. Unfortunately, she often acts as violently as some men do in the traditional relationship

But even when the man is bigger and stronger, he may not wish to return the violence. Some battered husbands say they are afraid to hit their wives because they believe they will inflict serious physical damage. Others cling to a code of chivalry, while still others are cannoned about their children.

But perhaps the least recognized aspect of family violence is that men and women often assume the roles of both the attacker and the attacked. When we look for the food guy and the bad guy in some marriages it’s impossible to distinguish who’s who. In many of the most violent marriages the husband and wife trade blows with alarming regularity.

In a violent marriage, a physically smaller woman can deal a crippling blow by utilizing the element of surprise. She can clobber a man when he’s not looking attack him from behind or suddenly kick him in the groin. In instances such as these, size and strength are not a factor.

The previously mentioned Queens writer and his wife argued one day while driving back from grocery shopping. When we pulled into our driveway I got out and unlocked the trunk. There were several bags, most of them large and one small one containing only a can of soup and a loaf of bread. My wife took that one while I bent over to grab a couple of the larger ones. She took the bag with the soup and bread and bashed me on the skull laying open about two inches of flesh."

Very often a woman becomes a husband beater because she is a battered wife. Revenge and self-defense are two powerful motives for attacking the husband.

A former FBI agent related this story. "One FBI man used to get drunk and beat up his wife all the time. One night he came home drunk and passed out on the bed. She got some clothes line and tied him up spread eagle. When he woke up she beat the tar out of him with a belt raising welts all over his body. She told him that every time he beat her she would wait until he was asleep, tie him up and beat him again. He thought about it and stopped beating her up after that.

In Washington, D. C. on Feb. 8 of this year another woman used a similar tactic but carried the operation a step further. After she had her husband securely fastened in bed she sprinkled him with gasoline and set him on fire.

When it comes to spouse killing, there is true equality between the sexes. The FBI’s annual compilation of nationwide crime statistics shows: "In murders involving husbands and wives, the wife was the victim in 52% of the incidents and the husband in the remaining 48."

Sociologist Gelles said, "Men and women have always been equal victims in family violence fifty percent of the killings are men, fifty are women. That hasn’t

changed in at least 50 years.

What has changed dramatically in the last year (1974) is the number of women who are beating murder charges with the defense that they are battered wives striking back.

The prosecutor called Eugene Ware’s death an "execution." He was found dead in his bedroom, shot three times in the chest and twice in the head. Evelyn Ware, his wife, was charged with murder, but an Orange County, Calif. Jury found her not guilty after hearing evidence that she was a battered wife.

In Chicago this year, Juan Maldonado was shot and killed by his wife, Gloria, after he beat his 8 year-old son with a shoe. The State’s Attorney ruled there was insufficient evidence to warrant her prosecution.

Janice Hornbuekle of Bellingham, Wash, was a battered wife who repeatedly asked police for protection but never got it. One night, after her husband beat her and threatened her with a knife, she grabbed a shotgun and shot and killed him. She was charged with first degree murder, but last year a jury found her not guilty.

InMargquene, Mich. Sharn McNearney shot and killed her husband with a shotgun as he walked in the front door of his home. The police said she had long been abused by her husband. The judge ruled that the prosecution failed to prove she ad not acted in self0defense and she was declared innocent.

Some legal experts view this trend with alarm while many feminists see it as an encouraging sign. It is easy to understand that the victim driven by fear and desperation can reach the point where he or she pays back in kind.

In our book, "Wife Beating: The Silent Crisis," Richard Levy and I devoted one chapter to battered husbands. The problems of battered men and battered women are obviously not equal. For a number of reasons, the plight of the battered wife is more severe than that of the beaten husband and there are many more of them. However to say that the problem is greater for women then men is not to say that the problem of battered men is not significant. Husband abuse should not be viewed as merely the opposite side of the coin to wife abuse. Like child abuse, both are parts of the same problem.

Crisis Center hot line numbers:

Queens 990-3188

Staten Island 390-1301

Manhattan 621-3403

Brooklyn 630-4688

Bronx 579-535326

SUNDAY NEWS MAGAZINE

NEW YORK. JULY 2, 1978