This article contributes to the literature on wife abuse by using the patriarchal bargaining framework, which highlights the issue of agency as women strive to achieve their goals within the constraints of family and culture. Study participants were recent South Asian immigrants to the United States. Narrative analysis revealed that patriarchal constraints in natal families, culture, and expectations of benefits gained through marriage influenced many of the women to migrate for marriage. When husbands enforced extreme patriarchy with abuse, women's personal efforts to contain abuse were largely ineffective. However, advocacy agency interventions did help some women break out of extreme patriarchy.

The research for this article used available qualitative data from separate studies of South Asian-, Vietnamese-, and Hispanic-origin women victimized by intimate terrorism. Regardless of country of origin, period, or U.S. community, women used similar ways to cope. Consistent with perpetrators' misogynistic attitudes and aim of enforcing patriarchal expectations, many women responded to abuse from positions of powerlessness and fear. Instrumental help from family and friends and, depending on the group, advocacy agencies or counseling services assisted women in leaving men or stopping the abuse. Women used multiple coping strategies, often adding new approaches when those used initially failed.

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Interviews with 27 girls and the professionals who worked with them yielded retrospective accounts of court interventions into families. Contradicting prior criticisms, for the setting and sample, girls were not confined to control sexual activity or as punishment for crimes committed after they ran from abusive families. Intervention problems included holding girls responsible for fighting with physically abusive caretakers, and electronically forced presence in homes with destructive caretakers. Family counseling benefitted girls with troubled families. Independent living benefited those with intractably destructive families. The research generated contemporary local information about broad criticisms leveled against juvenile courts’ responses to girls.

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