The 1985 NFVS involved a nationally representative sample of 6,002 households. Both men and women were surveyed, but only one randomly selected respondent was surveyed per household. The current study analyzed the 2,733 cases in which respondents were married or living with an intimate and had at least 1 child younger than 18 years old. Approximately 55.6 percent of the respondents were female. A total of 456 of the 2,733 respondents reported wife abuse as defined by any of the 19 behaviors toward their partners included in the Conflict Tactics Scale, which was used by the NFVS to measure domestic violence and child abuse. Based on a literature review, the study used multiple predictors, including parent, child, and family characteristics; and it investigated interaction effects between wife abuse and other risk factors. Bivariate correlations were calculated to investigate relationships between predictor variables. The study found that in homes where the mother was abused, children age 14 or older were at greater risk of physical abuse, as were boys. In homes with physical child abuse but without wife abuse, the abusing parent's history of having been hit as an adolescent was significantly related to physical abuse; this factor was not significant in homes with wife abuse. There were no significant interaction effects between wife abuse and physical punishment of the child. The intergenerational transmission of violence was a factor in verbal child abuse in both homes with and without wife abuse. These findings do not warrant preconceived assumptions about families with certain characteristics, but they do suggest risk factors that warrant thorough investigation in individual cases. 4 tables and 43 references