Four major dimensions emerge as common to all feminist perspectives on wife abuse: the explanatory utility of the constructs of gender and power, the analysis of the family as a historically situated social institution, the critical importance of understanding and validating women's experiences, and employing scholarship for women. Popular psychological and sociological explanatory theories about wife abuse mostly lack a political or feminist perspective. Feminist perspectives provide information about what the public thinks about the causes and contexts of wife abuse and also raise important and difficult questions about the nature of conventional research in this area. 24 references