Jewish family services are often underfunded, and therefore cannot operate a hotline, provide adequate staff, or maintain a safe-house for abused spouses. The most evident form of abuse is physical, although abusive husbands are usually clever enough to strike only at the parts of the body that are not exposed. But verbal and emotional abuse may be every bit as damaging to everyone in the family. Quibbling and arguments, while undesirable, do not necessarily constitute abuse, but insulting or demeaning a spouse is definitely abuse. Isolating a woman from family and friends, restricting her ability to function by controlling her access to money, or undermining her authority as a mother is abuse.
Abuse occurs in a community that tolerates it.
While the aggressor is the immediate perpetrator, the community cannot shirk its culpability if it allows abuse to occur and continue. We tend to look for causes of things, and indeed a match may be the cause of a fire. But fires cannot burn in the absence of oxygen, and if the supply of oxygen is cut off, as when we douse a fire with water, the flame is extinguished. If attitudes in the community undergo an appreciable change, and this change pervades every facet of the community, spouse abuse may be extinguished. I recently lectured on spouse abuse in a major Jewish community, and 600 people attended the lecture.