Rural women report varied forms of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and in some cases women have been murdered by their intimate male partners. Reports of sublethal and lethal violence again women in rural families can best be understood as part of the terror of rural patriarchy. Men are more likely to injure or kill women when their supremacy as patriarchs is somehow threatened. Men tend to kill their female partners after an extended period of abuse, whereas females usually kill male partners in self-defense or at least to prevent further victimization. The social and physical mobility of rural women is often more restricted than it is for their urban peers. Rural woman battering is also linked to the geographic isolation of rural regions and to the broader rural sociocultural setting that includes a long-established tradition of gun ownership. The sexual abuse of battered women in rural areas is not addressed by the extant research literature on domestic violence and rural social life in general. The emotional abuse of rural women, especially that designed to limit their physical and social mobility, forms a central part of an overall strategy of social control. Typical examples of emotional abuse include continuous attacks on women's self-esteem, angry verbal outbursts, withholding money, extreme jealousy, false accusations of infidelity, isolation from family and friends, and threats of violence. Some rural women indicate emotional abuse is worse than physical or sexual abuse because it leaves deep-seated psychological scars. Rural women employ a variety of resistance strategies, and they are not always helpless or passive victims. The author indicates distinctive qualities of rural patriarchy can help understand the level and intensity of interpersonal violence against rural women. 20 notes