Battered wives

Del Martin's 1976 study, revised in 1981, is often cited as the first book about domestic violence published in the United States. It examines the legal and political position of abused women and argues that their immediate circumstances can only be understood within wider political forces.

The book opens with a foreword by Ruth Gottstein, a former publisher, who recalls how the project began. Working for the Glide Foundation in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, she heard about Erin Pizzey's manuscript on the same subject at an international publishing fair in Frankfurt. The idea struck her personally, since she had grown up with violence at home. Colleagues dismissed the topic as unsuitable for publication, and the British deal fell through, so she commissioned Martin to write about conditions in the United States.

Gottstein describes the obstacles the team faced. Reliable data was scarce, public agencies offered little support, and women's groups helped victims in secret. The authors finally obtained case histories from Brooklyn Legal Services, which had done early work for victims. Gottstein also recounts how publishing the book cost her a long friendship with a psychiatric social worker who refused to discuss the subject at a professional conference.