This study was designed to explore the violent behavior between intimate partners in age for marriage and understood whether the romantic relationship satisfaction functioned as a mediator which was affected by the intimate partner violent behavior and the commitment of a romantic relationship between intimate partners. The definition of intimate violence in the study was meant that unmarried and married men and women in their intimate relationships are subjected to intimate partner violence or violence against intimate partners, and that violent patterns include "serious violence", "minor violence", "sexual and intimate violence" and "verbal violence". Romantic relationship satisfaction of this study was defined as the satisfaction of an individual with the intimate relationship in which he or she was located. And romantic relationship satisfaction, it should be from the subjective point of view of the individual to understand the cognition, behavior and feeling of the individual in the relationship. Therefore, the relationship commitment in this study is defined as an individual’s willingness to love the person and to maintain a long-term relationship with his or her partner in an intimate relationship.
This study recruited 504 intimate partners in marriageable age as research subjects. Among them were 385 (76.4%) females w and 119(23.6%) males. The average age of the participants was 32.9 years with a standard deviation of 3.20 years, the average romantic relationship duration was 37.22 months, the median duration of the relationship was 22.00 months. They were asked to fill a set of questionnaires, including Intimate Partner Violent Behaviors Scale, Relationship Satisfaction Scale, and Relationship Commitment Scale. We analyzed the data by using descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, and stepwise multiple regression. The results were as follows:
First, about 56.5% of the participants experienced intimate partner violent behaviors. About 37.3% of the participants were both victims and perpetrators in violent behaviors. Second, the data showed that there was a positive correlation between relationship satisfaction and relationship commitment (r = .624). Third, there was a negative correlation between intimate partner violent behaviors and relationship satisfaction (r = -.24) and between intimate partner violent behaviors and relationship commitment (r = -.29). At last, the two variants of "oral violence" and "sexual and intimate violence" jointly explained 8.5% of the variance in relationship commitments, supporting the negative relationship between "oral violence", "sexual and intimate violence" and the commitment of relationship.
In conclusion, relationship satisfaction had a function as a partial mediator in intimate partner violent behaviors and relationship commitment (β = -.163 vs β = -.109.) It meant that intimate intimacy violence negatively affected relationship satisfaction, which in turn partially affects relationship commitment, reducing the individual’s willingness to maintain long-term relationships.
There are some recommendations for future research. First, long-term longitudinal and qualitative research should be used to understand the changes in mental process and personal experience. Second, the social expectation variable can be used to value the accuracy of research subjects’ answer. Lastly, it is important to find out the cause of violent behaviors and the reason for the individual to engage in violent behavior. In clinical work, practitioners could develop and practice more flexible and appropriate interaction and behavior, offer intervention earlier to reduce violence in romantic relationships, and help individuals in romantic relationship develop effective communication skills.
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