This study explored a clinical population on the issue of forced-marital sex to determine its incidence, its relationship to husband-to-wife physical violence and the effect gender socialization of the wife had on how she labeled the abuse or discussed it with a therapist. Clinical members of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy in Florida (N = 95) presented questionnaires to their female therapy clients (N = 541) who anonymously returned them to the researcher. The scales used in the instrument were the Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, 1979) to measure the variable of violence, the Sexual Experience Survey (Koss & Oros, 1982) to measure sexual abuse, and the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Spence, Helmreich & Stapp, 1973) to measure sex-role attitudes. The therapists were white (99%) with a mean age of 48 and primarily worked in private practice settings (75%). The client sample reported a mean age of 40, a mean education of 14.9 years and a mean income level between $30,--40,000 (combined husband and wife). Results showed 33\% reported husband-to-wife violence and 26\% reported rape experiences, with more being raped in marriage (15\%) than outside that relationship (11\%). Of those raped by someone other than their husband, 60\% were by someone known to the victim. Of the subjects who had experienced marital rape, 64% occurred in physically violent marriages, while 37% were reported in otherwise non-violent relationships. Traditional sex role attitudes of the woman made it more likely she would experience forced-marital sex (p $<$.05) but did not significantly influence whether or not she labeled the experience rape nor whether she discussed it with a therapist. The strongest indicators of forced marital sex were couple conflict and husband violence (p $<$.001). How the clients discussed their abuse with a therapist was explored. Implications for researchers and family therapists are presented. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-12, Section: A, page: 4115. / Major Professor: Calvin E. Zongker. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78118 |
| Contributors | Lobnitz, Gloria Swope., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 218 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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