Domestic violence isn't about just physical violence - and state laws are beginning to recognize that Lisa Aronson Fontes, University of Massachusetts Amherst May 12, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail Lisa Aronson Fontes, University of Massachusetts Amherst (THE CONVERSATION) Three or more U.S. women are murdered every day by their current or former intimate partner. That may in part be due to a failure of state laws to capture the full range of behavior that constitutes domestic abuse. The law continues to treat intimate partner violence like a bar fight – considering only what happened in a given incident and not all the prior abuse history, such as intimidation and entrapment.