Abstract
This study examined how different forms of childhood family victimization are associated with the attitudinal (not actual action) refusal of wife abuse among women and men in rural Bangladesh. It included 1,929 randomly selected married women and men. Of the sample, 31.3% (Men = 49.3%, Women = 13.5%) attitudinally refused overall wife abuse, 38.5% (Men = 53.2%, Women = 23.8%) refused emotional abuse, 67.0% (Men = 82.5%, Women = 51.6%) refused physical abuse, 78.0% (Men = 88.6%, Women = 67.4%) refused abuse on wife's disobeying family obligations, and 32.3% (Men = 50.3%, Women = 14.6%) refused abuse on challenging male authority. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that the odds ratio (ORs) of the attitudinal refusal of overall wife abuse were 1.75 (p = .041) for the childhood non-victims of emotional abuse and 2.31 (p < .001) for the victims of mild emotional abuse, compared to the victims of severe emotional abuse. On the other hand, the ORs of the overall refusal of abuse were 1.84 (p = .031) for the non-victims of physical abuse and 1.29 (p = .465) for the victims of mild physical abuse, compared to the childhood victims of severe physical abuse. Data further revealed that the childhood non-victimization of physical abuse increased all types of attitudinal refusal of wife abuse, e.g., emotional abuse, physical abuse, abuse on disobeying family obligations, and abuse on challenging male authority. Compared to the childhood experiences of severe emotional abuse, data also indicated that childhood exposure to mild emotional abuse might increase the attitudinal refusal of wife abuse on a few issues, e.g., abuse on disobeying family obligations, abuse on challenging male authority, and physical abuse. It appeared that childhood experiences of family victimization greatly influence different types of attitudinal refusal of wife abuse. We argue that the issue of childhood victimization should be brought to the forefront in the discourse. We recommend that state machinery and social welfare agencies should expend significant efforts to stop child abuse within the family and in other areas of society in rural Bangladesh.
Highlights
Attitudinal refusal of wife abuse among men and women is a crucial factor that practitioners attempt to enhance in the society for the primary prevention of intimate partner violence (IPV) in many low- and lower-middle-income countries
It appears that the refusals of overall wife abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, abuse on disobeying family obligations, and abuse on challenging male family authority are higher among the childhood non-victims of physical abuse than those exposed to severe physical abuse during childhood
The attitudinal refusal of wife abuse is quite low in rural Bangladesh
Summary
Attitudinal refusal of wife abuse among men and women is a crucial factor that practitioners attempt to enhance in the society for the primary prevention of intimate partner violence (IPV) in many low- and lower-middle-income countries. Refusal/acceptance of wife abuse is a widely talked about issue in the discourse of the primary prevention of IPV against women. Both scholars and practitioners advocate for community-based interventions for enhancing refusal of wife abuse among the citizens [2,3,4]. Previous studies show that people’s attitude related to wife abuse is a significant feature of IPV perpetrated against women [5,6,7,8,9] This is because, in patriarchal societies, people believe that a husband has a right to ‘punish’ his wife under some conditions, e.g., if a wife argues with her husband [10,11,12]. This attitude indicates why a society rationalizes ’the privilege of a husband’ to abuse his wife [10, 12]
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