(2 of 7)
Barbara, 30, a middle-class housewife from South Hadley, Mass., was first beaten by her husband when she was pregnant. Last summer Barbara's husband hurled a dinner plate across the kitchen at her. His aim was off. The plate shattered against the wall and a piece of it struck their four-year-old daughter in the face, blinding the child in one eye.
In Miami, Diane, 27, a receptionist, said she married "a real nice guy," a Dr. Jekyll who turned into Mr. Hyde a week after the wedding. "Being married to this man was like being a prisoner of war. I was not allowed to visit my family. I couldn't go out on my own. He wouldn't even let me cry. If I did, it started an 'episode.' "
In a Duluth shelter for battered women, Lola, who married 19 years ago at age 18, said her husband was losing control more frequently: "He gets angry because he's coming home with a bag full of groceries and I didn't open the door fast enough. Because he didn't like the way I washed the clothes. Because the supper's not ready. Because supper's ready too soon."
In Atlanta, Rita, 30, told TIME'S Roger Witherspoon that her husband William, 40, a hospital worker, asked her to come into the bedroom during a birthday party she was giving for neighborhood children. "He slapped me blind. He pulled the shotgun from the wall and dared me to move. I cried and asked him why he was bothering me. He just tore my clothes off. He said I was a bitch and used other ugly words. I asked him not to do that because the children and their parents were here. But he just left the room and told everyone to leave. Then he told me to get back in bed and that we were going to make love. I said no. But he had the .38 and a knife and hit me. I got in and we did it. My nose was still bleeding."
An extraordinary number of abuse cases involve guns or knives. In Los Angeles, Harry Whalen, 48, a curtain installer, is serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for killing his fourth wife, Betty, 35. She was hiding in a Long Beach, Calif, women's shelter, seeking a divorce. Whalen caught her in her lawyer's office parking lot and begged to hold the couple's small child. He then ordered Betty into his van and drove off. Three months later her body was found in a shallow grave in the desert; she had been shot in the face. One of Whalen's former wives reported later that he had threatened to kill her too.
Many men, and even many women, believe that abused wives have a masochistic streak that keeps them in the home long after the beatings have begun. But Michigan Psychologist Camella Serum dismisses such assumptions as folklore. "Masochism has no relevance in this situation. It is just another way to blame the victim. The reason she stays has nothing to do with loving the pain or seeking the violence."