Bermudian males with "a caveman mentality'' are beating women they feel are getting "out of hand'', says an expert on spousal abuse.

Psychiatrist Dr. Anne Guthrie told The Royal Gazette the reason for the recent upsurge in domestic violence is that women are becoming less easy to "control'' thanks to better education and civil liberties.

"This upsurge in violence that you see towards women is actually to do with women getting a bit out of hand,'' Dr. Guthrie said.

She and Women's Advisory Council chairman Ms JoCarol Robinson said efforts to educate the general public about domestic violence are paying off, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

Dr. Guthrie said women are becoming more adequate while men are still stuck in the Stone Age.

"Society has not moved off from the caveman stage where you get your woman by hitting her over the head and dragging her off to a cave.'' Last month, a 25-year-old woman was acquitted of setting her boyfriend's bed on fire and attempting to murder him, because the jury found that he pushed her to do it through repeated abuse. In another case, a man was found guilty of raping his wife for the first time in Bermuda's history.

Dr. Guthrie said these cases proved Bermudians were beginning to move out of "the caveman stage'' into a better understanding of domestic violence.

"What society is saying is that we are no longer going to tolerate abuse,'' she said.

At the Women's Advisory Council, Ms Robinson attributed this increased awareness to the efforts of her group, the Physical Abuse Centre, and the Women's Resource Centre, among other organisations.

"I've seen, from the 1980s to the 1990s, the consciousness of the community being raised through workshops and forums,'' she said. "For instance, there was a "Blow The Whistle on Violence'' Conference in February of this year.'' Ms Robinson said part of the reason for a high rate of domestic violence in Bermuda was cultural.

"It was a method of dealing with unruly women. There would be a pattern from generation to generation.

"We need to have ongoing education so that the people who have grown accustomed to violence as a normal side of family life, can be made comfortable in the knowledge that this is not the norm.'' She said the Bermuda court system is not well equipped to deal with problems of family violence.

In Bermuda, the victim will often drop charges because they are frightened or embarrassed, she said. That is why the Women's Advisory Council is studing the Quincy, Massachusetts Model.

"The Quincy model is a fundamental change of attitude and policy,'' she said.

"It takes the prosecution initiation out of the hands of the person and puts it where it should be, in the hands of Police.

"There is an element of protection and safety in that the woman is not to blame for the prosecution of the abuser.'' She said the model encourages counselling rather than incarceration for early offenses, "but if the abuse continues then the abuser is more drastically dealt with''.

Ms Robinson said the Women's Advisory Council was looking at the Quincy, Massachusetts Model to see if it would benefit Bermuda.

Cases of domestic violence frequently lead to members of the public asking why the abused person does not leave the home.

Dr. Guthrie said people often do not leave because the abuser conditions them to believe it is their fault, through emotional abuse.

"The person starts to feel they deserved this to happen,'' she said.

She said the abuser makes the abused believe they will never find another person who desires them.

"If you have verbal abuse hurled at you often enough you feel you are worth nothing after that. Abusers go for the bit that upsets you the most. They use anything that will demean or drag them down to the lowest level.'' She said many abused women suffer "Battered Person's Syndrome'' because of the resulting loss of self-esteem.

Dr. Guthrie said the public needed to understand the cycles of abuse that battered people were subjected to. She said the first stage is a tension build-up, then a violent explosion of physical, verbal or sexual abuse.

"The abuser is afterwards extremely apologetic and promises the abuse will never happen again,'' said Dr. Guthrie. "The cycle then repeats itself.'' She said a person did not have to be victimised as a child to become an adult who abuses or is abused, but if you were abused as a child or in a previous relationship "then you might more readily get under control''.

Dr. Guthrie said the ultimate result of all this was violence on the part of the abused through a state of dissociation common to victims of trauma. "Some abused people go their whole lives and never do anything about it. With other people they get to the point where their head starts going into various parts, an angry bit, a sad bit.

"They start to say things they would not normally say, and do things they would not normally do until eventually something happens.''