The most common approach views incest as a symptom of family dysfunction that serves as a tension-reducing device to maintain the family unit and protect it from disintegration. Typically, the incestuous father is described as steadily employed, domineering and tyranical, and unable to deal well with adult women. He views his wife as rejecting and threatening, or the wife is described as immature, needy, and insecure in her sense of self-worth and 'femininity.' The theory that incest occurs because of family dysfunction excuses the offender. To assign each family member a role in causing the incest is to imply that what happens to women and children in their homes can be traced to something they have done wrong. Once this is rectified, their victimization will cease because men will no longer need the incest as a means of asserting their power and proving their sexual strength. While it is necessary to look at individual psychopathology and the ways in which the family provides a context for sexual violence, it also is necessary to view incest as part of a continuum of societally condoned male behaviors that victimize women and children. 28 footnotes.