The analysis indicates that women with a higher risk of being battered are more likely to be from the lower socioeconomic strata and are involved in a more highly volatile marital relationship than nonbattered women. These factors are related more to the husband's or the couple's characteristics than to those of the individual woman. Findings on the lower class roots of domestic violence may be flawed by the reluctance of middle-class persons to admit marital violence in a survey. Another problem in the findings is that the relationship between interpersonal conflict and physical violence is conceptually underdeveloped and perhaps tautological. The data do not support a qualitative difference between relationships with minor violence and those with severe violence. 1 table, 13 refrences. (Author abstract modified)