The Pros And Cons Of Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is as old as recorded history. There have been reports of domestic violence since the dawn of time, in every country. Throughout history domestic violence has been legal and socially acceptable, until recently. Two major elements have sealed the status of woman for more than six thousand years. Those elements are male dominance, and the concept

Prior to the 1800’s, the majority of legal systems regarded ‘wife beating’ as a way in which a husband could assert his dominance and authority over his wife. Within the 1970’s, attention to domestic violence began with the woman’s movement, principally through the introduction of feminism and women’s rights. In recent years however, the way domestic violence is viewed has changed. Previously, domestic violence only occurred within marriage, predominantly against wives and therefore formalised through the use of a marriage contract. Within modern society, domestic violence can now refer to

The earliest literature reference to domestic violence against men can be found in the studies of Suzanne Steinmetz (1977,1978) entitled, “The Battered Husband Syndrome.” She hypothesizes that the incidents of husband-on-wife beatings rivals the incidents of wife perpetrated batterings, and that it was husband abuse not wife abuse that was underreported form of domestic violence. Steinmetz used two United States populations, a broadband nonrepresentative group and a random sample in New Castle, Delaware in the form of police reports and family surveys. The small study found only small differences in the percent of men and women who resorted to violence in the context of pushing, shoving, or hitting with hands or an object. This suggested early on that domestic violence is not a one way street. Husband beating is a serious issue and needs attention due to the fact that it is grossly underreported. Steinmetz received numerous criticism from her colleagues on this concept. In later studies, Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Suzanne Steinmetz (1980), authors of the book, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in The American Family, supports Steinmetz’s earlier studies in finding that women acted violently during marital affairs compared to a similar number of men who act violently in the United States. The study used 2,413 family surveys, finding in majority of them that the level of violence was a mutual or bilateral activity, with only 27% of cases finding that husbands were the

State (Miccio, 1999). Through the rule of thumb, any conduct that resulted in black eyes, welts, and split lips constituted no violation of the law. Husbands would not be prosecuted if they beat their wives with a stick no thicker than the diameter of their thumb. This rule of thumb, in effect, gave husbands the right to use physical force as a means to control their wives behavior and women were left at the mercy and control of their husbands. In 1870 the “subtle chastisement” law in the United States ended, but women saw little improvement in the prevalence of domestic violence (Ball, 2002).

Domestic violence, alternatively referred to as Intimate Partner Violence, is defined by the Department of Justice as “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.” While domestic violence is commonly thought of as only physical or sexual abuse, domestic violence can also be emotional, economic, or psychological. Domestic violence has remained constant in society throughout history, even though over time society’s response to the issue has changed. While domestic violence affects everyone regardless of race, gender, age, etc. it is estimated that approximately 90% of all victims are women. For the purpose of this paper, I will be focusing on

In “The Rule of Love’: Wife Beating as Prerogative and Privacy,” Reva Siegal explains the socio-legal vulnerability of early 19th century American wives to domestic violence, especially wife beating and how it correlates with wife murder. Unlike wife beating in the early 19th century where men were allowed to give “chastisement” to the wife, murder was not taken lightly in the slightest. Women were, “according to the Anglo-American law,” ordered to give up their “values of paid and unpaid labor,” property, and rights not only as a woman but as a human (2122). Women also gave up their ability to fight in court against their husband due to their legal status merging with their husband. This made the ability for the husband to beat his wife significantly more capable due to the repercussions being slim to none; however, wife murder was not acceptable in society, law, or any other forms of modern civilization. As it seemed to be prevalent in society to beat one’s wife unlike wife murder, it was more present in popular culture versus the “published judicial” culture until murder was committed. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat (1843) thematically posits the vulnerability of an early 19th century American wife to not only being beaten, but even murdered, by her husband, as the narrator’s wife-beating escalates without legal interdiction until, ironically, after he has murdered her.

This began to change in the 1980s, as women’s groups were organized locally and internationally to demand attention to the physical, psychological, and economic abuse of women (p.369-370). Domestic violence is a serious social issue that happens to many women in our world today. This type of abuse is not declining but continually rising on a daily basis. There have been issues in the past with the way these cases were being handled. Today, there has been some improvement concerning the laws that have been enforced in order to protect women from this type of abuse. There has been extensive research done on this issue in the past concerning domestic violence. Over the last ten years there have been a number of surveys on domestic violence that have been published from around the world.

Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior or coercive control in any relationship that is used by one person to gain or maintain power and control over another. (Violence). Most of society’s think domestic violence is when one of the spouses is abusing the other spouse. Domestic violence can occur between anyone who has lived together at one point of time; couples who have never lived together, but have a child together and family member who has live together in the same household. Domestic violence can happen to anyone, regardless of their class, religion, ethnic background, education, age, gender, disability status, sexual orientation, gender presentation, or immigration status. The domestic violence can place in different categories, such as; emotional abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse and financial abuse. Researcher had discovered tactics that the abusers use to control their victims such as; dominance, humiliation, isolation, threats, intimidation, denial and shifting blame. (Helpguide.org).

Domestic Violence is a type of abuse that usually involves a partner or spouse wanting to take control and power of the other partner through the form of physical or verbal assault. Domestic Violence, defined as abuse involving intimate partners, is a growing problem in the United States (Barrier 1998). The frequency of violence can be on and off, occasional or chronic.

Historically, domestic violence on females has evolved drastically. It used to be a norm for women to be objects of their fathers or husbands and lacked civil rights. In many cultures, domestic violence was not preceded as a crime. According to Marcia Chaiken’s article “Domestic Violence and Criminal Justice,” she explains the history of violence against women and how it has evolved through the centuries. Chaiken states how women experience physical and sexual violence by their intimate partners which leave harmful effects on mental and physical health, and their ability to live healthy and productive lives. In the past, men had the right to use physical force against their wives and forcing sex was considered a private relational problem. Forcing sex was sought as romance back in the day, not rape. Religions generally discouraged the act of physical abuse within relationships, but women had to obey the men because they lived under his roof. A common perception of the past was that a man’s home was inviolate and authorities cannot interfere with relationships. Around the 1960s, women

According to statistics found by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Every nine seconds a woman is abused by her husband or intimate partner. At least 1 in every 4 women and 1 in every 9 men have been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in their lifetime. Most often the abuser is one of their own family. Domestic violence is a problem that somehow affects every one of us in this room at some time and is actually the leading cause of injury to women -- more than car accidents, muggings and rapes combined.

The history of domestic violence goes back all the way to the start of mankind. Ever since lower people were taken advantage of by higher people in society. The men were much stronger than the women which resulted in the women usually being the ones abused. In the beginning, the man had every right to abuse his woman. If you stare back into the 1940’s and 1950’s you will notice that little was done to stop domestic violence. The police would get involved but would leave the situation to be resolved by the family members. As suggested in the peer-reviewed article “Domestic violence past and present” by Anna Clark, policemen would just tell the man to composed himself and the woman to stop aggravating him. For example, in the sentence “Before the 1970s, judges and police officers still saw wife beating as a trivial offense—policemen would tell husbands to calm down and wives to stop annoying them, and cases rarely came to court. Popular culture depicted wife beating as a joke, and psychiatrists saw it as a pathology of the

Domestic violence happens every day and it includes people of all races, ethnicities, color, religions, rich or poor, old or young, man or woman and physical and mental disabilities. Domestic violence happens to anyone regardless of where you live, work and how smart you are; these do not matter to the person committing the acts of violence against you. Today, domestic violence goes by Intimate partner violence defined as actual or threatened physical or sexual violence or psychological/emotional abuse by a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend, or date (Meadows, 2014). There are other forms of domestic violence such as stalking and dating violence. Domestic violence just doesn’t occur to married couples,

In this quote it gives a perfect example of a woman being treated as an object, “In 1800 BC, the Code of Hammurabi decreed that a wife was subservient to her husband and that he could inflict punishment on any member of his household for any transgression” (par. 2, Overview). Women were not considered people, they were basically owned by their husband. It was as if they were livestock. Going back through history a man ‘punishing’ his wife was not uncommon. “Medieval Canon law encouraged that wifely disobedience be punished publicly, using devices like iron muzzles with spikes which depressed the tongue” (par. 4, Overview). The abuse of a man’s wife was allowed not only privately, but publicly. Not only was this public abuse, it was public torturing. Too many deaths due to the abuse caused economic problems, “In Renaissance France when it became clear that too many women and children were being beaten to death and their economic contributions lost, lawmakers acted to moderate the effects of domestic chastisement. One statute, considered in its time to be progressive, restricted the chastisement of wives and children to ‘blows, thumps, kicks or punches on the back...which did not leave any marks,’ but added, ‘the man who is not master of his wife is not worthy of being a man.’”(par. 5, Overview) The considered someone to be a man only if they were masters of their wives. If they weren’t they were

Since the beginning of the human race, domestic violence has been present. However, it was not until recent centuries that people began to look at it as a crime. To many people, in many cultures, domestic violence was seen as not only acceptable, but necessary in some situations.