Domestic Partner Violence and Abuse
• Examine domestic violence and how it has changed over time.
Before the mid-1800s, many legal systems viewed husbands beating their wives and parents beating their children as acceptable (Felter, 1997). Spousal abuse, also known as intimate partner violence (IPV), stemmed from the idea that it was a husband’s job to discipline his wife. She was legally considered to be his property and his responsibility. Violence by husbands toward wives has been a cultural norm. The mid-1850s saw a change to this notion, especially in the Western world. The legal restrictions against IPV started in Tennessee in 1850 and spread throughout the United States and the United Kingdom (Kleinberg, 1999). Wife beating was made illegal everywhere in the United States by 1920, the same year as women earned the right to vote.
Changes in the rights of women and the efforts of social movements have changed the narrative in the West around domestic violence. Despite these changes, spousal abuse is still widespread globally. According to the United Nations (2015), 35 percent of women experience IPV annually. Women’s organizations and nongovernmental organizations have pushed for legal restrictions to ensure that this practice stops. Included in these efforts are the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Amnesty International, and the World Health Organization. Although these international efforts are underway to curb violence against women, headlines about acid attacks, honor killings, and dowry killing continue to draw attention, underscoring the need for further changes to stop the violence.
There is a myth about the Rule of Thumb, which was that English law stated that a husband could not use a stick wider than his thumb to beat his wife. Although the origins and validity of this are debatable, the saying became popular during the women’s rights movement when discussing the history of domestic violence. Image: Judge Thumb: Warranted Lawful. Author: James Gillray. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb#/media/ File:Judge_Thumb.jpg. License: CC-0
The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) called into question the historically unequal power relations between men and women. Specifically, they argued that violence is one mechanism to keep women in subordinate social positions relative to men across many cultures, worldwide. Although men experience domestic violence, especially as children, the majority of victims, especially of severe violence and domestic homicide, are women. In the United States, around 15 percent of all violent crime is intimate partner violence. According to McQuigg (2011), victims of domestic violence in the United States are overwhelmingly women. According to the Centers for Disease Control (2012), 4.8 million women and 2.9 million men are victims of physical assault from their partners. The amount of domestic violence in a country, in particular against women, is linked to how much equality and power women have in a society. Women with more social power experience greater security and less partner violence.
Current work in the United States and internationally focuses on changing cultural narratives around the value of women and working to increase victims’ access to support services, women’s access to education, provide more employment opportunities, and to ensure access to reproductive health care. These changes have been shown to decrease intimate partner and other types of family violence (such as child abuse and selling children into slavery).
Family violence is defined as the repeated behaviors of one family member to maintain power and control over another. The need to control others is a cause of domestic violence. Perpetrators use a combination of physical, sexual, and emotional harm or threats of harm, economic deprivation, and fear to get what they want. Often perpetrators want to control where the victim goes, what the victim does, and who they interact with, to isolate them and maintain control over them. Nonviolent relationships may slowly become abusive over time. Typically, during the early stages of abuse, the perpetrator will ask for forgiveness, bring presents, and act extremely nice after an abusive situation, thereby making it easier for the victim to excuse the abusive behaviors. Over time, the severity of abuse and manipulation tends to increase, and the cycles between abuse and calm become compressed. Walker (1979, 2016) was the first to describe and name this behavior the cycle of abuse.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) uses the same definition as family violence (the techniques are the same), but IPV happens between people who are in an intimate relationship, including marriage, cohabitation, dating, as well as between ex- spouses or partners. This term includes heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, and homosexual relationships and can happen in dyadic (just two people) as well as polyamorous relationships (multiple partners). IPV is also known as spousal abuse, battering, domestic violence, or common partner violence when it involves an ex- partner.