Background: The husbands of women with schizophrenia have been variously characterized in the psychiatric literature as abusive, burdened and ill. The aim of this paper is to summarize what has been written about these three perspectives.

Method: The search terms ‘schizophrenia’, ‘mental illness’, ‘marriage’, ‘spouse’, ‘partner’, ‘caregiver’, ‘caregiving’, ‘burden’, ‘assortative mating’ and ‘domestic abuse’ were entered into PubMed and Google Scholar. Criteria for inclusion of articles were relevance to the three identified themes of abuse, burden and mental illness in husbands of women with schizophrenia. The results show considerable variation, some of it cultural, with partial evidence for all three characterizations.

Conclusion: There is a need for support and psychoeducation programmes that are specifically designated for spouses and that address their special concerns.