This paper traces recent developments in the criminalization of spousal violence in the UK and in Israel, and addresses a new controversy regarding the meaning and the wrongfulness of such violence. The paper shows how intimate-partner violence has, in recent years, come to be acknowledged as a unique type of crime – a form of abuse, which goes beyond physical violence to include psychological and economic abuse. While contemporary accounts conceptualize, and consequently justify, offenses of spousal abuse relying on an abuse-of-trust theory, or on a “liberty crime” framework, this paper draws on the sociology and history of spousal relationships as patriarchal authority relations, to critically assess the new style of criminalizing spousal abuse. I argue that through acknowledging the shadows (or ghosts) of historical patriarchal authority, the new abuse offenses might risk its lingering presence in spousal relationships, rather than its disappearance.