Contrasting views of the role of alcohol in cases of wife assault

Research has shown that men with alcohol problems have higher rates of violence against their wives and that they tend to inflict more frequent and injurious assaults than men who do not abuse alcohol. The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of alcohol abuse as a predictive factor in cases of wife assault relative to other sociodemographic and attitudinal factors using a nationally representative survey on violence against women conducted in Canada in 1993. The results show that heavy drinking predicts violence against wives in zero-order analysis and remains significant when the effects of class, age, and type of relationship, are factored out. However once proxy measures of attitudes about the rightness of male degradation and control of women are factored out, alcohol abuse is rendered nonsignificant. These findings have important implications for interventions and treatment of male batterers.