"This is a groundbreaking contribution to the literature of sexual assault and family violence." -Susan Brownmiller
"[Russell] has done a superb study which yields comprehensive and undeniable findings about a subject no one had even whispered about before . . . a classic work." -Phyllis Chesler
One out of seven American women who have ever been married has been raped by a husband or ex-husband. Written by the principal investigator for the National Institute of Mental Health study that discovered this shocking statistic, this book is a monumental, eye-opening work that dispels misinformation and illusions about a previously ignored aspect of family violence.
Introduction to New Edition: Wife Rape: from the 1980s to the 1990s
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: The Crime in the Closet
Part One
The Law
2 Wife Rape and the Law (updated)
Part Two
The Study
3 The Rape Study
4 What is Wife Rape?
Part Three
Theory and Statistics
5 The Prevalence of Wife Rape
6 A Continuum of Sexual Relations
7 Wife Rape and Wife Beating
8 Husband Battering, Wife Battering, and Murder
9 Characteristics of Wife Rape
Part Four
The Husbands
10 Husbands Who Rape Their Wives
11 Why Men Rape Their Wives
12 Abusive Husbands, Alcohol and Other Drugs
Part Five
The Wives
13 The Victims of Wife Rape
14 The Trauma of Wife Rape
15 Why Some Wives Stay
Part Six
Women as Property
16 Husbands Who Won't Let Their Wives Go
17 Once a Wife, Always a Wife-Rape by Ex-Husbands
18 Women Who Marry the Men Who Rape Them
19 Lovers and Daughters Are Property Too
Part Seven
Torture and Femicide
20 Torture and Marriage
21 Femicide: The Murder of Wives
Part Eight
Wives' Strategies
22 Wives Who Report to the Police
23 How Some Wives Stop the Violence
Part Nine
An International Perspective
24 Wife Rape in Other Countries
25 Conclusions and Solutions
Appendix I Husbands Accused of Wife Rape in the United States: Selected Cases
Appendix II State-by-State Information on Martial Rape Exemption Laws, as of January 1990
Source Notes
Selected Bibliography on Wife Rape (Expanded)
Index
