Until recently, Janay Palmer Rice was a little-known figure, the 26-year-old partner of Ray Rice, the star running back for the Baltimore Ravens. But after Mr. Rice’s contract was terminated by his team on Monday, she became the most famous battered wife in the country, a fierce defender of her husband and, to domestic violence experts and survivors, an extraordinarily public example of the complex psychology of women abused by men.

“Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is,” she posted on her Instagram account. “To take something away from the man I love that he has worked” for all his life is “horrific,” she said. “Ravensnation we love you!” she added.

Her post implied that the assault was taken out of context, and it is not at all clear that she views herself as a victim of abuse. But thousands of others, including domestic violence survivors and the therapists who counsel them, have drawn upon their own experiences to try to answer this question: A man strikes a woman with such force that she collapses, unconscious. He appears to spit on her body. Why would she then exchange wedding vows with him and, after a video surfaces showing the world the violence, stand by him?

Beverly Gooden, a human resources manager in North Carolina, logged on to Twitter to explain. “I tried to leave the house once after an abusive episode, and he blocked me,” she wrote about her ex-partner, adding the hashtag #whyistayed. “I thought that love would conquer all,” she added in a subsequent message. Other domestic violence survivors picked up the hashtag and offered their own reasons for staying with men who had made them suffer.