Family, intimacy, and homicide: a macro-social approach

The study of violence among sexual intimates and family members within sociology is currently developing along two lines that are methodologically distinct. A macrosocial approach analyzes rates of homicide for cities, metropolitan areas, and states, while a microsocial approach, which has focused largely on family violence, relies on surveys to study self-reports of assaultive violence. As the two traditions have developed, they have emphasized a different range of independent variables and types of violence. The macro-social tradition has focused on subcultures, economic deprivation, and trends in lifestyles and daily activity patterns. The micro-social researchers have emphasized the impact of social change on marital roles and expectations, conflict, power and exchange within interpersonal relationships, and the impact of historical patterns and cultural norms concerning the patterns of violence within families and sexually intimate relationships. Similarly, one tradition focuses almost exclusively on homicide while the other has generally studied serious, but not lethal assaults. Ultimately the two traditions could lead to similar conclusions about the causes of violence among intimates. A convergence of findings would enhance confidence in the validity of results, while discrepant findings would point to flaws in theory or method. This paper begins to consider convergences and differences by using the techniques that have been developed in the macro-social tradition along with hypotheses drawn from both traditions. Data on four specific types of homicide from a sample of 299 central cities are examined in a series of parallel models which include indicators of the causes of violence derived from both traditions.