The instrument most widely used for the estimation of the prevalence and incidence of family violence in the United States is the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) developed by Straus more than 20 years ago. The CTS is composed of three scales designed to assess three facets of conflict: reasoning, verbal aggression, and violence. This discussion focuses on the reliability and validity of the CTS. A consideration of the issue of spousal consensus on violence has led to a recommendation on scoring the CTS violence scale by using the highest value reported by either spouse for each item. Although this scoring method is intended to offset possible underreporting bias, alternatives are available, and all such methods require careful study to establish the optimal technique in terms of bias reduction. Methods for assessing the empirical construct validity for the CTS violence scale are demonstrated. The single-factor model for the CTS Form N violence scale fit for the women in the sample, but not for the men. This raises a separate but related issue: the possibility of differential item functioning by gender for the items on the CTS violence scale; men and women may not interpret these items to mean the same thing. The author concludes that the measurement of spousal violence requires further development from the current standard. He discusses the procedure required to develop a new instrument. 2 tables, 3 figures, and 34 references