The study hypothesized that the greater the lack of resources, the greater the number of tactics that would be used to gain power, that status incompatibility between spouses would be more likely to lead to violence when the female held an advantage over the male, and women who had been in an abusive relationship for a long period of time would experience learned helplessness. Findings demonstrated that assaults on women occurred within a context of unequal power relationships. Different types of assault appeared to occur in a context of unequal means of economic survival. Women who were able to at least equalize their occupational prestige with their partner suffered fewer types of abuse than women whose prestige was lower than their partner's and women from lower socioeconomic households. Although the number of years with a spouse was a significant predictor of the types of abuse, the relationship was inverse, and this inverse relationship also supported the significance of relative dependency in understanding abuse contexts. The poverty rate of female-headed households was five times that of married families. Battered women had difficulty finding employment because of disrupted employment records due to harassment at work by the perpetrator of abuse or due to excessive lateness and absenteeism. Child care was also a serious problem for women attempting to enter the workplace. The authors conclude that exit from the battering situation must be made a viable option for women by halting women's economic dependence on men. 57 references, 2 notes, and 2 tables