Martin van Creveld writes:
In about fifty percent of all cases the violence is mutual. The remaining fifty percent are initiated almost equally by people of both sexes. Poof! Goes myth number one.
Again judging by the media, women suffer more serious injuries than men (men’s injuries, in fact, are hardly ever mentioned). Not true. According to other investigators, it is men who usually suffer the more serious injuries. The reason is that women are more likely to use weapons, whereas men hit with their fists or their feet. Poof! Goes myth number two.
Domestic violence directed by men against women is often said to be underreported. True or not, there is no doubt that violence directed by women against men is even more so. The reason is simple: should a man dare complain, then if he is lucky he will be laughed at. If he is not then there is a good chance that he will get himself arrested, charged, tried, convicted and punished. I personally knew one such case, and there must be many others.
Furthermore, whereas a man who beats up or kills his woman is said to commit domestic violence, women who do the same are said to engage in “reverse domestic violence.” Thus the stereotype, to use an expression feminists love so much, consists of men hitting women. That in itself may very well lead to over-reporting of such cases. Poof! Goes myth number three.
Supposedly men kill their girlfriends and wives, whereas the opposite is rare. Not true, or at any rate true only up to a certain point. Depending on the country, the ratio is about three or four to one. In other words, for every three or four women killed there is a man who
loses his life. However, as is the case with domestic violence as a whole, there is some reason to think that the statistics fail to present the full picture. There are two reasons for this. First, more women than men use covert means such as poison which may not be
detected. Second, more women hire other people (men) to do the killing for them. Though it is almost certainly true that more men kill their spouses than women, the ratio may not be as skewed as the headlines claim. Poof! Goes Myth number four.
Most people of both sexes who commit crimes of any kind try to cover their tracks as best they can. Not so men who kill their wives. To be sure, there are exceptions. However, most of them, instead of trying to escape, turn themselves in. Others commit suicide. They do so either on the spot, immediately after having committed the deed, or soon afterwards. No other class of criminals has displayed similar behavior. The question is, why?
