An Economic Exclusion/Male Peer Support Model Looks at “Wedfare” and Woman Abuse

In recent years “welfare reform” has become a vehicle for many neo-conservative social commentators to invoke marriage vows as a cure for poverty and the abuse of poor women. Their basic claim is that cohabiting relationships are not only more violent than marriages, but that married couples are happier, healthier, and wealthier than cohabiting ones. A policy then of encouraging cohabitants to marry, they claim, would lead to increased family wealth and decreased family violence. We examine these claims in this article, along with the alternative argument that marriage per se is not a solution to these problems. Alternatively we propose an economic exclusion/male peer support model that explains why many cohabiting men abuse women in intimate relationships. If forcing these couples to marry is not a solution, then structural solutions are necessary, along with progressive policy suggestions that address the antecedents of poverty and abuse. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 Trapped by Poverty/Trapped by Abuse Conference, Austin, Texas. The authors would like to thank Desmond Ellis, Claire Renzetti, Barbara Sims, Tom VanderVen and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and criticisms.