Citation

Warner J, Riviere J, Graham K. J. Fam. Hist. 2008; 33(2): 156-172.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, National Council On Family Relations, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0363199007313611

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Just fewer than 5 percent (369 out of 7,590) of all reported assaults in early modern Portsmouth, England, had male as well as female defendants. The majority of these fights (250) ranged spouses against their mutual enemies, but a significant minority also included other household members. These fights are also distinguished by having an unusually high percentage of male victims (58 percent, compared to 48 percent for the records as a whole). Although the presence of men emboldened women to confront people whom they might ordinarily evade, it also had a dampening effect on their level of violence, which was lower, as a rule, than it was for women who fought on their own or alongside other women.