Sanctions And Sanctuary

Cultural Perspectives On The Beating Of Wives

Dorothy A Counts, Judith K Brown, Jacquelyn C Campbell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367302016
• eBook ISBN: 9781000310665
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Bringing together evidence from 15 Western and non-Western societies - ranging from hunter-gatherers to urban Americans - this book examines wife-beating from a worldwide perspective. Cross-cultural comparison aims to give a more accurate picture of cultural influences on wife-battering and to show the commonalities and differences of the phenomeno

1
Introduction: Definitions, Assumptions, Themes, and Issues

Judith K. Brown

Our purpose is to provide a unique and innovative perspective on a complex problem that has only recently generated public concern in Euro American society: wife-beating. The present volume is the first collection of ethnographic explorations (largely first hand) devoted to the subject. The overview of customs in a variety of cultures is supplemented by evidence for analogous behavior among non-human primates. Descriptive information is drawn from societies that vary in the prevalence and severity of reported wife-beating; from societies that are located in widely scattered geographic areas; and from societies that range in complexity from hunter-gatherers, to horticulturalists (with special emphasis on Melanesia, a culture area in which wife-beating has been widely reported), to industrializing complex societies. All of those who have contributed to this volume hope that this new information and enlarged perspective will call attention to the worldwide plight of battered wives, promote their cause, and further the efforts of those working to eliminate the abuse of women.

This introduction will begin by providing some definitions and assumptions shared by the contributors. Next a brief review of previous cross cultural studies will be presented and other promising areas of research will be suggested. The chapters will be introduced and a final section will identify the themes and issues raised by their authors.

Definitions and Assumptions

Most earlier cross-cultural studies have dealt with more than one type of family violence. The subject of this volume is restricted to wife-beating, which will be defined as a man intentionally inflicting pain on a woman, within a non-transient, male-female relationship, whether or not the partners are officially married. The subject is further restricted to physical aggression, because it can be identified unambiguously. Psychological abuse, verbal assault, threats, intimidation, calumny, humiliating ridicule, emotional blackmail and extortion are no doubt as pervasive, and may be as injurious as a physical attack. However, non-physical aggression is not as readily amenable to observation by an outsider, particularly by an ethnographer from another society.

Care must be exercised to distinguish between wife-beating and wife-battering.¹ This is an important difference, although an unfamiliar one in our own society, where almost all of what is labeled as "wife-beating" is actually wife-battering. The distinction had its beginning in an exchange between Erchak (1984) and Gibbs (1984), the first dialogue on husband-to-wife aggression to appear in a major anthropological journal. (For further elaboration of the difference, see Counts, in press a.)

In many non-industrial societies, husbands beat their wives in what Beatrice Whiting (personal communication) refers to as a "physical reprimand." Where such behavior is customary, it is viewed as unremarkable. The distinction between wife-beating and wife-battering is necessary to accommodate data from these societies, where men who beat their wives are not "abnormal" or deviant. Their conduct is culturally expected. The women in these societies are not meek and accepting. They are compelled to tolerate such treatment, but would decidedly prefer husbands who do not beat them (see Counts, Chapter 5 this volume). Wife-battering, on the other hand, is something extraordinary, possibly resulting in severe injury, incapacity or even death. In most instances, such behavior is not viewed as usual or acceptable by members of the society and elicits intervention by a third party or parties. The distinction does not depend entirely on the response of others to the assault, but also on the extent of the aggression, since in some instances even the murder of wives provokes no reaction.

A full explanation of aggression against wives must include not only sociocultural but also psychological variables. It must indicate whether the individual's behavior is the result of psycho-physical factors (such as alcoholism [Leonard and Jacob 1988] or neurological disorders [Elliott 1988]), or is the result of a particular life history. Psychological reasons for wife-beating and wife-battering are largely independent of cultural variables. Thus even societies in which wife-beating and wife-battering are reported as virtually absent and as strongly disapproved are not immune to the presence of the occasional brutal individual who ill treats his wife for idiosyncratic reasons. (The analysis of psychological variables is beyond the scope of this volume.) It is therefore assumed that wife-beating is universal, but its incidence in any particular society can range from being an extremely rare, individual matter to being a frequent and regular occurrence. And the severity can range from mild to actual murder. Frequency and severity of wife-beating vary independently (see Kerns, Chapter 10 this volume).

In our own society there is supposed disapproval of both wife-beating and wife-battering. However, this is no deterrent, since American men seem to perceive the sanctions as neither certain nor severe, according to a recent, chilling study by Carmody and Williams (1987). Some societies share our disapproval of both wife-beating and wife-battering and sanction both negatively. Other societies condone wife-beating and may even view it as necessary, but wife-battering is disapproved, rare or self-defeating. (This pattern is particularly appropriate for a society in which women make a major contribution to subsistence.² Husbands physically chastise women for poor work performance and other shortcomings, but a woman's injury or incapacitation would work a hardship on her kin, including the husband, whose physical survival depends on her productivity.) The third pattern is one in which neither wife-beating nor wife-battering is disapproved, and even the murder of a wife may go unpunished, as in the murders of wives in Brazil (60 Minutes, transcript 1988) and the dowry murders in India (Claireborne 1984; Bordewich 1986; Miller, Chapter 13 this volume). In a number of these societies, mothers-in-law instigate and take part in the aggression against young wives. Women contribute little to subsistence in such societies, but their vulnerability is not the result of economic factors alone. Wifely behavior that elicits a beating or battering can vary from the inadequate performance of duties, such as a late or poorly prepared meal; to practicing sorcery, to immodesty, suspected infidelity, and actual adultery; to the illtreatment of a child, a co-wife, the children of a co-wife and insolence toward affines; to disobedience and insubordination. (Also see Counts 1990a and in press a; Lateef, Chapter 14 this volume.) The latter two wifely offenses are widely viewed as egregious and are punished with the extreme severity typical of righteous indignation (see Mushanga 1977-78). Surprisingly disproportionate vehemence and violent rage are seen as justified, because of the firm belief that the entire social fabric would unravel if such wifely behavior were countenanced. A wife's assertiveness or her flirtations with autonomy are viewed as equivalent to insurrection and as a threat against the sacred social order.

Some Previous Cross-Cultural Studies: A Brief Review

For a variety of reasons, anthropologists typically strive to paint "their" village in a favorable light. (See Counts 1990a, 1990b.) The result is that the ethnographic literature provides scant data on unlovable behavior such as wife-beating (an imbalance this volume attempts to rectify). Nevertheless a number of cross-cultural studies have made use of the relative frequency of wife-beating as a variable, in testing hypotheses using a sample of non-industrial societies. (Cross-national studies, dealing with Euro-American industrialized societies, will not be reviewed here.) The validity of the conclusions of cross-cultural studies depends upon the statistical significance of the findings, upon the appropriateness of the test statistic, upon the size and selection of the sample societies, and ultimately upon the quality of the ethnographic data reported for those societies on the variables under consideration. It is the latter factor most especially, which is open to question in the studies to be reviewed below. This note of caution, concerning possible variation in the validity of the original data, should be kept in mind.

Early Correlational Studies Using a Worldwide Sample

As early as 1962, John W. M. Whiting and his co-workers at Harvard University's Palfrey House had devised a set of codes for wife-beating, based on data for 71 societies described in the Human Relations Area Files. Slater and Slater (1965) and Lester (1980) utilized these ratings. For Slater and Slater frequency of wife-beating was one of a series of variables which were positively and significantly correlated with "narcissism," the subject of their research. Lester's brief paper is one of several that seeks to find a relationship between the presence of wife-beating and other indices of aggression at the societal level. He also examines the relationship of "the oppression of women" and the frequency of divorce to wife-beating and concludes that it is more prevalent where the divorce rate is high, women's status is inferior and cruelty and aggression are more prevalent. The paper is extremely brief and reports only the significance of various correlations. The sources of the codes of the antecedent variables are not always given, nor is there information on the size and composition of the samples, for each of the reported correlations. Like Lester, Masumura (1979) examined the relationship of wife-beating to other forms of aggressive behavior such as homicide and personal crime. A much fuller account than Lester's, Masumura's article nevertheless does not identify his 86 sample societies. The author concludes that the significant correlation between wife abuse and other forms of aggression may be due to underlying factors such as sexual jealousy and the possibility that certain societies are violence prone. For two other early cross-cultural studies, Naroll (1969) and Schlegel (1972), wife-beating was not a central focus, but was one of many variables in research concerned with aspects of methodology and with "the sick society," in the case of Naroll and with "female autonomy" in the case of Schlegel. Whiting and Whiting (1975) allude to the Palfrey House ratings in their study of intimacy and aloofness in marriage. These characteristics of marriage are unrelated to wife-beating. However, the Whitings suggest a relationship between wife-beating and the degree of isolation of the married pair. They note that "there is safety in numbers," an important observation, to be discussed further below and confirmed in several of the chapters that follow.

Using a sub-sample of forty-six societies from the Human Relations Area Files Probability Sample Files, Levinson (1981) examined the correlation between the use of physical punishment to discipline children and wife-beating, testing one portion of the hypothesis suggested by Straus: "Violence in one family role is associated with violence in other family roles" (1977:721). Levinson's findings, though statistically significant, only partially support the hypothesis. Although both forms of intra-famiiial violence tend to be rare in some societies, the predicted relationship between frequent use of physical punishment and frequent wife-beating is not borne out. Most societies that scored as "common" or "frequent" on wife-beating scored "rare" or "infrequent" on physical punishment of children.

The last of the earlier cross-cultural studies using a worldwide sample coded for wife-beating was conducted by Broude and Greene (1983). Using Murdock and White's Standard Cross-Cultural Sample of 186 societies plus fifteen alternate societies, the authors were able to find information on wife-beating for only 71 cases, and in 57 wife-beating was coded as present. The study created seventeen scales to measure non-sexual aspects of the relationship between husbands and wives such as how marriages are arranged, customs pertaining to newlyweds, attitudes toward and ease of divorce. Of all these variables, only one, remarrying widows having their husbands chosen for them, was significantly related to wife-beating. This single finding could be the result of chance and suggests that wife-beating in many societies may have little to do with the non-sexual relationship between husbands and wives (as will be suggested below).

Previous Studies Using Anecdotal Cross-Cultural Evidence

Several earlier studies have used cross-cultural evidence concerning wife-beating in a less quantified and less systematic way. For example, Mushanga (1977-78) provides a descriptive study (to be considered more fully below) that presents data only from sub-Sahara Africa. Straus (1977) uses anecdotal anthropological evidence in support of his hypotheses concerning intra-familial violence. As noted above, Levinson (1981) tested one of these cross-culturally. Straus suggests "near universality" for intra-familial violence (which includes wife-beating), but cautions that its actual prevalence is not fully known. His basic conclusion is that "the level of physical aggression in the conjugal relationship tends to be isomorphic with the level of physical aggression in nonfamily spheres of life...." (1977:724). And the level of violence in the husband-wife relationship is "isomorphic" with the level of violence in the parent-child relationship. Straus's use of the ethnographic literature seems somewhat haphazard. He does not explain the basis for his choice of tribal examples, nor why he uses particular sources (for example, citing information on the!Kung from Eibl-Eibesfeldt, rather than from the classic works by Marshall, Draper or Lee). The ethnographic literature, vast and somewhat uncharted for the non-anthropologist, contains more and less reliable sources. Ethnographic examples are convincing only when their choice is explained and when sources are evaluated.

Steinmetz (1981) conducted a study using questionnaires on individuals from a sample of six societies, examining among other variables the frequency and severity of marital abuse. The questionnaire is described as "structured," and the brief paper does not include examples of the questions. The sample size for each society varies and there is no information on the conditions under which the tests were administered, how the subjects were chosen or how the protocols were scored. No tests of significance appear on the article's tables. The author rightly concludes that the study raises more questions than it answers. A three-way comparison among India, Ireland and the United States was conducted by Tellis-Nayak and Donoghue (1982), attempting to relate marital violence to the structuring of decision making authority. The research design, the quality of the data and the method of analysis are such as to render any of the conclusions tentative at best.

Recent Cross-Cultural Studies

Campbell's (1985) important exploratory research differs from all other cross-cultural studies of wife-beating because the author restricts her sample to societies described by female ethnographers working with female informants. The sample is small, the number of variables examined is extensive and the results are more suggestive than conclusive. Yet this study is significant because of the care with which ethnographic sources were selected and hence for the validity of the data.

Two recent works by Levinson are the most ambitious cross-cultural studies of various forms of family violence. The first (Levinson 1988), an anthropological chapter in a major new comprehensive handbook on family violence (Van Hasselt et al. 1988), provides an informed overview for the non-anthropologist. The second, Levinson's (1989) more technical, book-length cross-cultural study, is also based on his ongoing, long-range holocultural research. Two elaborate ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Map of the World
• Map of Oceania
• 1 Introduction: Definitions, Assumptions, Themes, and Issues
• 2 Wife Abuse: Does It Have an Evolutionary Origin?
• 3 Fight! Fight!: Men, Women, and Interpersonal Aggression in an Australian Aboriginal Community
• 4 Room to Maneuver:!Kung Women Cope with Men
• 5 "All Men Do It": Wife-Beating in Kaliai, Papua New Guinea
• 6 Household Violence in a Yuat River Village
• 7 Why Wape Men Don't Beat Their Wives: Constraints Toward Domestic Tranquility in a New Guinea Society
• 8 Factors Relating to Infrequent Domestic Violence Among the Nagovisi
• 9 Nudging Her Harshly and Killing Him Softly: Displays of Disenfranchisement on Ujelang Atoll
• 10 Preventing Violence Against Women: A Central American Case
• 11 Men's Rights/Women's Wrongs: Domestic Violence in Ecuador
• 12 Like Teeth Biting Tongue: The Proscription and Practice of Spouse Abuse in Mayotte
• 13 Wife-Beating in India: Variations on a Theme
• 14 Wife Abuse Among Indo-Fijians
• 15 Wife Abuse and the Political System: A Middle Eastern Case Study
• 16 Wife Abuse in the Context of Development and Change: A Chinese (Taiwanese) Case
• 17 Wife-Battering: Cultural Contexts Versus Western Social Sciences
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index