St. Louis Globe-Democrat/This was written before the issue of battered women became a big story

Behind Closed Doors: Battered Women

“I really loved him,” said one victim. “I thought he’d change, that he’d get tired of running around. Later, when I woke up and realized that he’d never change, I had no place to go and no money.”

By Katy Gurley

It’s midnight when he walks through the door. He sees his wife’s expression of worry and hurt instantly give way to indignation. Defensive anger wells inside him. They begin to argue, shouting accusations and insults. He slaps her. She screams. He hits her again—harder, this time, with his fists. By the time the police arrive, she has two broken ribs and a fractured jaw.

She is a battered wife.

She may be young, middle-aged or old. White or black, rich or poor. She’s probably a homemaker, and she may have many, few or no children. She’s small and frail—or large and husky. She could be your neighbor, your sister or your best friend.

She could be you.

The plight of the battered wife is finally beginning to emerge from behind the closed doors of American marriages, and all evidence, both local and national, leads to the conclusion that it is a very ugly and widespread problem.

In St. Louis, a man flew into a rage at his wife, grabbed an iron pipe and started beating her with it. Another woman’s husband, after beating her on several occasions, shot her in the head. She lived to testify against him.

Another St. Louis woman, bruised and bandaged, told her domestic courts worker that her husband had beaten her, but wasn’t that all right? Wasn’t that what marriage was all about?

…No one knows how often scenes like this occur. In St. Louis ad elsewhere, the police, courts and hospitals don’t usually keep specific records on battered women. But a few facts emerge:

–Husbands and wives make up 11 percent of all aggravated assaults in St. Louis, according to a study by three local sociologists;

–Several St. Louis divorce attorneys said that battered wives are involved in 50 percent of their cases;

–Out of 469 arrest warrants in January, the city prosecuting attorney says six were issued to men who had beaten their wives;

–Of the 95 total emergency cases handled by the Salvation Army here, 12 directly involved women who had been beaten by their spouses.

… “We see these women all the time,” said Elizabeth Crank, a social worker with the Salvation Army said. “They come in here with swollen faces or black eyes, and they have no place else to go.

“Sometimes we’ll have a woman come in here for a few days while he’s drunk and beating her. Then, when he’s sober, she goes home, and he’s the perfect husband.”

Until the next time…