Husband's Drinking in First Year of Marriage Predicts Subsequent Husband-to-Wife Violence

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Differences in drinking styles between a husband and wife appear to predict husband-to-wife violence in the early years of marriage, according to a study by researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.

Kenneth E. Leonard, Ph.D., senior scientist, and Brian M. Quigley, Ph.D., project director, investigated the relationship of husband violence, verbal aggression, and a couple's alcohol use in the first year of marriage with husband-to-wife violence in the second and third years of marriage.

Results were based on data from 414 couples interviewed in the early 1990s as part of Leonard's Buffalo Newlywed Study.

Of the 414 couples studied, 35.3 percent experienced at least one incident of husband-to-wife physical aggression in the second year of marriage, 37.3 percent experienced at least one incident of physical aggression in the third year of marriage and 45.2 percent experienced at least one incident of physical aggression in either year of marriage.

"When the husband is a heavy drinker but the wife is not, aggression is more likely in the second and third years of marriage," Quigley explained. "It may be that differences in drinking patterns create conflict, and that this conflict triggers the violence."

For some couples, verbal aggression is a means of addressing problems between the partners, and this has also been linked to violence.

But the UB researchers found that among couples who experienced violence in the first year of marriage, verbal aggression did not predict later violence. When violence had not occurred in the first year, marriages high in verbal aggression were more likely than those low in verbal aggression to experience violence in the subsequent years.

They noted that once aggression has occurred, verbal aggression may no longer influence physical aggression, although it may play an important role in initial episodes of physical aggression.

The findings are the latest in a program of research on early marriage initiated by Leonard with funding from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

"These findings, taken together with other findings from our research program, suggest that heavy drinking, particularly among husbands, predicts a variety of relationship problems, including aggression early in marriage," according to Leonard.

Quigley added: "Psychologists, marriage counselors, and other practitioners in the field need to be attuned to the potential for violence and the need to directly address violence, marital conflict and heavy drinking."