What is the evolutionary psychology explanation of a male violence against female spouses

Each year more than 500,000 women in the us alone report to the police violent attacks by current or former male partners.Violence against wives occurs in all societies, but the rates at which wives are beaten and killed are enormously variable over time and place.At the time, the leading theory of causation for battering was psychopathology, which holds that male batterers are mentally ill.Suppose that women possess the following three adaptations, among others:In western europe about 1400, the life expectancy of men at age 20 was 9.4 years less than the corresponding life expectancy for women.On its own, sexual selection theory lacks an explanation as to why females are choosy and males are competitive, but not the other way around.

The same pattern is evident in british arrest rate data.Men spend their energies trying to impress women.Women, for example, are said to be the choosy, reserved sex.