Determinants of Spousal Emotional Violence and Help Seeking Behaviour of Married Women in India

Abstract

Violence is a global phenomenon resulting in the deaths of more than 1.6 million people each year, making it one of the leading causes of death worldwide. No country is untouched by violence; the vast majority of its resistant deaths occur in low to middle income countries, many of which are stricken with internal conflict. Violence against women is more prevalent in two major aspects namely spousal violence and intimate partner violence. Spousal violence refers to violence perpetrated by partners in a marital union. The prime types of violence are physical, emotional and sexual violence. Spousal emotional violence is any act including confinement, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, or any other treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity and self-worth. The scars of emotional violence may not be visible to eye, but the effect it has on the victim can be traumatic. As the research regarding the emotional violence between the spouses remains a less travelled path. Moreover, the law recognizes physical and sexual violence as crime against the individual but not the emotional violence. Therefore the present study attempts to focus on emotional violence against married women perpetrated by the spouse. The present study with descriptive and diagnostic design aimed to find the prevalence rate, causes, effect of emotional violence, help seeking behaviours and the association between spousal emotional violence and, selected demographic variables with an aid of interview schedule administered among 208 married women through purposive sampling technique in Coimbatore, the Manchester of South India. The study findings denote that 100% sample women are prone to spousal emotional violence due to various reasons like difficulties at work, financial problems for the spouse, unready food, drinking habit etc. Majority of the women do not seek any help to get rid of emotional violence.