domestic violence

domestic violence, social and legal concept that, in the broadest sense, refers to any abuse—including physical, emotional, sexual, or financial—between intimate partners, often living in the same household. The term is often used specifically to designate physical assaults upon women by their male partners, but, though rarer, the victim may be a male abused by his female partner, and the term may also be used regarding abuse of both women and men by same-sex partners....