Dating Violence -- Always Man on Woman?

I spotted this interesting article on Reuters today. It's about violence in dating and that it is just as likely that men are subjected to violence as they are to dishing it out. Dr. Murray A. Straus, founder and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire says that "women do about as much hitting of dating partners as men do." The study was conducted in 32 nations. It says basically that women are just as likely to hit their man as they are to be hit.

It is hard to imagine he says because so much dating violence goes unreported. And those that are reported are typically women reporting abuse by men. And then when a man hits a woman, he's much more likely to cause injury.

So is it fair? Is it the hitting that is the concern or the injury? Can you have the playful 'hitting' where no intention is made to do harm? Or where do we need to draw the line? Makes you wonder?

And it also talks about the fact that daters have more violence than married couples -- it says typically because daters are younger and younger people have more incidents of violence. However, I wouldn't have thought that. I'd have thought that as a dater that I'd want to value my date, whereas people like my parents have grown accoustomed to each other and can easily take each other for granted or treat with disdain. If you are dating someone and it gets that way, then get out, I mean you won't get much better treatment than what you get while dating and if it is that bad now...