单选题 The relationship between husbands and wives is one of the strongest bonds in our society. It is deep, passionate, and often 1 . The exact amount of husband-wife violence is difficult to 2 , but it is one of the most common of all forms of violence. More calls to the police involve family disturbances 3 all other forms of violent behavior 4 . In 1993, New York city police 5 received 300,000 domestic violence calls. But researchers deemed that it was still an 6 . They estimate that it actually occurs in about one of 7 two marriages.
In many societies, husbands have traditionally had the legal right to physically punish wives who refuse to accept male 8 . Although this practice is no longer 9 in Western culture, it still occurs. 10 , many victims of spousal abuse find that the police are reluctant to be of much help. Battered women report that abusive husbands are merely given a lecture or spend the night in jail and are soon back to their 11 ways. There appear to be two major reasons for this. First, most police officers are male, and they tend to hold a traditional view of gender roles. Even assaults that do serious physical harm to the 12 are often seen as private matters that should be 13 by the married partners, not the police. Second, 14 other violent crimes, a significant percentage of the victim of spousal abuse drop the charges 15 their attackers, some officers feel that even a vigorous enforcement effort is likely to produce few results.