In an average year approximately four million American women experience “a serious assault by an intimate partner.” One-third of women seeking hospitalization in America do so because of such domestic violence. Many women feel that a restraining order is an effective way to combat abusive behavior at the hands of their boyfriends, spouses, or partners. Thus women constitute a majority of the beneficiaries of all restraining orders granted in this country. In fact, in protection order cases involving spouses or dating couples, ninety percent of the defendants are male.