What is the relationship between intimate partner violence (ipv) and marriage?

U.S. marriage patterns have changed dramatically in the past 40 years. Most marriages are now preceded by cohabitation, and cohabiting couples are less likely than ever to transition to marriage (Guzzo, 2014). Age at first marriage has increased substantially: From 1970 to 2009, the median age at first marriage rose from 22.5 to 28.1 years for men and from 20.1 to 25.9 years for women (Lee and Payne, 2010). At the same time, divorce rates among individuals over the age of 35 doubled (Kennedy and Ruggles, 2014).

Recognizing these trends, intimate partner violence (IPV) researchers changed how they conceptualized intimate relationships. The first studies of IPV prevalence treated married and “common-law married” persons as being in comparable relationships (Straus, 1977). By the late 1990s, with greater recognition that living together was not necessarily analogous to common-law marriage, researchers began to compare IPV rates among people who were cohabiting to those who were married (Aldarondo, 1996; Schafer et al., 1998; Zlotnick et al., 1998), a trend that continued into the new millennium (Anderson, 2002; Anderson, 2007; Brownridge, 2004a; Brownridge, 2004b; Field and Raul, 2003; Johnson, 2001; Murty et al., 2003; Zlotnick et al., 2006). Although early studies found higher rates of violence in cohabitating (vs. married) couples, later reports did not.

The few studies that examined IPV prevalence in representative samples of adults that included dating persons came to different conclusions. Among the 18,415 adult women who participated in the 1995–1996 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, independent of age, single and divorced or separated women reported higher rates of IPV than did married persons (Vest et al., 2002). Among the 3295 18–28 year olds who were part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health study and who were in an exclusive dating, cohabiting, or married relationship in 2001–2002, daters were less likely to report IPV and cohabiters reported levels of IPV similar to or higher than those reported by married persons (Brown and Bulanda, 2008).These findings, based on data from 15 to 20 years ago, merit updating.

Boyfriends and girlfriends are common perpetrators of fatal IPV. Indeed, about half of the intimate partner homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by an unmarried partner: 2.5% of the 10,608 men murdered in the U.S. in 2015 were husbands (n = 113) or boyfriends (n = 152) killed by an intimate partner, whereas 35.8% of the 2818 murdered women were wives (n = 509) or girlfriends (n = 496) killed by an intimate partner (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2017a). And, as discussed later, there likely are more such homicides.

The lack of information about violence by current and former non-marital partners has differential impact because marriage patterns differ by race in the U.S. Blacks, who are least likely to marry (Chambers and Kravitz, 2011), can be expected to have a higher percentage of non-marital relationships than whites. This pattern can be observed in intimate partner homicide data: Black women are four times more likely than white women to be murdered by an unmarried partner (Catalano et al., 2009).

Multiple federal and state policies take into consideration the couple's relationship. One such policy is the firearm purchase and possession restrictions placed on certain persons convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence offense or under certain domestic violence restraining orders. The policy has prevention implications because the most common weapon used in the intimate partner homicide of both women and men is a firearm.

Herein we present some of the first, to our knowledge, data about firearms use in nonfatal IPV by type of relationship. We use law enforcement records because over half of all IPV incidents are reported to police (Reaves, 2017) and because the records include threats with a gun, the most common form of gun use against an intimate partner (Sorenson, 2017). As such, they provide the most complete on-going administrative data available by which to examine IPV-related gun use. Moreover, law enforcement intervention is sometimes necessary, albeit not sufficient, to trigger DV-related federal gun prohibitions. The primary variable of interest is relationship status, that is, whether the victim and offender were currently married, formerly married, currently in a non-marital relationship, or formerly in a non-marital relationship. These categories, not directly comparable to those used in federal IPV gun restriction statutes that were enacted nearly a generation ago, are believed to better reflect current patterns of coupling.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study drew upon the 54,456 department-mandated forms completed by Philadelphia Police Department officers when they responded to a call for assistance to a domestic violence incident. The forms, all gathered in calendar year 2013, include a narrative section in which officers write a description of the event as well as a series of checkboxes about the victim-offender relationship and the behavior of the victim, offender, and officer. The form, based on information

Results

Over 80% of the 31,206 incidents involved non-marital relationships: 13,824 (44.3%) involved current boy/girlfriends, 11,801 (37.8%) involved former boy/girlfriends, 4505 (14.4%) involved current spouses, and 1076 (3.5%) involved ex-spouses. Most of the incidents (68.1%) were labeled as “verbal only.” When it came to physical violence, incidents involving current boy/girlfriends had the highest percentage of physical violence (i.e., pushing and shoving, grabbing, hair pulling, slapping,

Unmarried persons are an important focus for prevention

Unmarried persons use the bulk of first responder resources and present an IPV risk similar to or greater than that of married persons. Unmarried persons were involved in over three fourths of the domestic violence incidents to which police responded in Philadelphia. The preponderance of unmarried persons may be due, in part, to that fact that of the ten largest U.S. cities, Philadelphia has the highest percentage (51.5%) of adults who have never been married (Eichel and Martin, 2017). Chicago

Conclusion

Unmarried persons present a risk to their intimates. As patterns of coupling evolve, policies and services need to change along with them in order to adequately meet the needs of the population. At this point, three changes are indicated, namely, for: Congress to modify firearm laws related to domestic violence to include unmarried, non-cohabiting persons; the FBI to make the multiple changes identified above in how it collects information so as to more fully capture the scope of homicide by an

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Philadelphia Police Department for providing access to the data. The project was begun under Commissioner Charles Ramsey, Deputy Commissioners Nola Joyce and Kevin Bethel, and Lt. Altovise Love-Craighead and completed under Commissioner Richard Ross, Deputy Commissioner Myron Patterson, and Lt. Krista Dahl-Campbell. The authors extend their appreciation to the team of assistants who coded the data: Rebecca Schut, Olivia Webb, Lauren Ferreira Cardoso, Eleanor

Funding

The research was funded, in part, by the New Venture Fund (03272014) and the Evelyn Jacobs Ortner Center on Family Violence.

Conflict of interest

The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

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