by Patrick F. Fagan and Kirk A. Johnson

About the authors: Patrick F. Fagan is a William H.G. FitzGerald research fellow in family and cultural issues and Kirk A. Johnson is a senior policy analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation.

The institution that most strongly protects mothers and children from domestic abuse and violent crime is marriage. Analysis of the 1999 findings of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has conducted since 1973, demonstrates that mothers who are or ever have been married are far less likely to suffer from violent crime than are mothers who never marry.

Specifically, data from the NCVS survey show that:
• Marriage dramatically reduces the risk that mothers will suffer from domestic abuse. In fact, the...