[The husbands of alcoholic women: experience in studying the psychopathology]

The familial and personal histories and present status of 41 married couples with the family pattern wherein the wife was alcoholic and the husband was non-alcoholic were clinically studied. The purpose was to study the incidence and nature of psychopathological disorders in males in this marriage. It was found that 8 males who were divorced and had been married to an alcoholic female showed no mental disorders at the moment of the study. The remaining 33 husbands living with their alcoholic wife had borderline mental disorders. The diagnostic assessment of the detected disorders was the following in order of decreasing: neuroses, psychopathies, neurotic development of a personality. The high incidence rates of borderline psychopathological disorders in the husbands of alcoholic females suggest that aid should be rendered to the whole family rather than an alcoholic alone.