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Mehfooz Et Al 2022 Does Childhood Experience of Interparental Abuse Shape Women
Mehfooz Et Al 2022 Does Childhood Experience of Interparental Abuse Shape Women
Mehfooz Et Al 2022 Does Childhood Experience of Interparental Abuse Shape Women
research-article2022
JIVXXX10.1177/08862605221123293Journal of Interpersonal ViolenceMehfooz et al.
Original Research
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Does Childhood
2023, Vol. 38(7-8) 5490–5518
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
Experience of sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/08862605221123293
https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605221123293
Interparental Abuse journals.sagepub.com/home/jiv
Abstract
A significant amount of literature exists on the lasting effects of interparental
abuse on children’s psychological health as adults. However, evidence on
how children’s childhood experience of interparental violence shapes their
attitude toward partner violence in adult intimate relationships is limited.
Given the existing evidence that women’s acceptance of partner violence as
a social norm increases the risk of partner violence, we analyzed the effect of
girls’ witnessing interparental abuse (where a father is a perpetrator) on their
attitude toward partner violence in their intimate relationships as adults.
We used data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for 31 low and
middle-income countries in Asia and Africa. Aggregating information about
women’s attitudes toward partner violence into a binary “intimate partner
1
COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus, Pakistan
2
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan
Corresponding Author:
Rafi Amir-ud-Din, Department of Economics, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore
Campus, . Room No. 39, H-Block, Defence Road, Off Raiwind Road, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.
Email: rafi.amiruddin@gmail.com
Mehfooz et al. 5491
Keywords
domestic violence, victimization, interparental violence, social learning
theory
Introduction
Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a serious violation of
human rights, leading to massive physical and emotional health costs for
women in developed and developing countries. IPV is one of the most perva-
sive human rights violations (Seabrook et al., 2019), denying women equality
(Zarling & Berta, 2017), security and dignity (Miller & Segal, 2019), and
right to enjoy fundamental freedoms (Harland et al., 2021), and causing men-
tal disorders and maladjustments (Cirici Amell et al., 2023).
IPV exists in almost all societies regardless of ethnicities, cultures, and
geographical borders. The wide variation in rates of IPV in different coun-
tries suggests that potentially modifiable cultural factors play an important
role in determining both the actual rates of violence and attitudes toward its
acceptability. Indeed, many cultures condone a certain amount of marital vio-
lence, which according to WHO (2009), is probably the most defining char-
acteristic of violence against women.
However, considering the diversity in cultural and social contexts, detailed
empirical studies are also needed from low- and middle-income countries
(LMICs) since the prevalence of domestic violence varies substantially
across cultures and countries (Elghossain et al., 2019; Hindin & Gultiano,
2006). On average, one-third of the population of women globally face
5492 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
Theoretical Background
Competing theories explain why and how childhood experiences shape adult
relationships. Social learning theory posits that individuals learn behavior by
observing and modeling the behavior of significant others in their lives
(Bandura, 1969). Social learning theorists contend that children imitate the
behavior of their parents and peers (Bandura, 1973; Owens & Straus, 1975).
When children witness interparental aggression, which may take the forms of
verbal abuse (insults or threats), emotional abuse (humiliation and degrada-
tion), or physical violence (kicking furniture or throwing objects), the prob-
ability of the children imitating aggressive behavior later in life increases
(Anderson & Cramer-Benjamin, 1999). Parents, particularly mothers, are
likely to be an influential source of such learned attitudes and behaviors.
Thus, the social learning theory provides the theoretical underpinnings for
the intergenerational transmission of violence.
The intergenerational transmission of violence theory presumes that expo-
sure to violence in the family is a strong predictor of relationship violence in
later life (Glaus et al., 2022). Exposure to violence in the family and the
resulting behavior particularly passes through successive generations, and
this intergenerational transmission of violence has a clear gendered dimen-
sion (Low et al., 2019). Children exposed to interparental violence were more
Mehfooz et al. 5493
Methodology
Data Sources
The data used for this paper was taken from the Integrated Public Use
Microdata Series of Demographic and Health Surveys (IPUMS-DHS).
IPUMS-DHS consistently codes variables across all countries and years. The
IPUMS-DHS database includes both individual and household-level
information.
We used all countries for which the data on women’s acceptance of IPV
and their experience of interparental abuse was available. In addition, the
countries in our sample are all LMICs. A total of 31 countries, including 24
African countries (Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad,
Congo, Democratic Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea,
Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique,
Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania,
Tunisia, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe) and 7 Asian countries
(Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Jordan, Nepal, Pakistan) met our
criteria. The data available for these countries corresponded to different sur-
vey waves from each year, starting from 2004 to 2018. The participants in the
study were ever-married women aged 15 to 49 years. The weighted sample
size was 466,330, which included only those women who had complete
information about acceptance of violence and their experience of interparen-
tal abuse. Since the DHS has a two-stage cluster design, robust standard
errors and sampling weights were used to make the data representative.
Study Outcomes
The outcome variable in this study is the acceptance of violence, which
reflects on respondents’ perceptions of violence. This factor has been evalu-
ated in several previous studies (Ali & Watson, 2020; Atomssa et al., 2021)
and is considered a significant risk factor for IPV (Amir-ud-Din et al., 2021).
5496 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
Exposures
The primary exposure variable in this study is women’s childhood experience
of interparental abuse. DHS asks the respondents if their father ever beat their
mother. Previous evidence suggests that a woman’s experience of interparen-
tal abuse crucially shapes their attitude toward partner violence (Aboagye
et al., 2021) and, in turn, increases the risk of partner violence (Wagle et al.,
2021). Possible answers to the question regarding the respondent’s abuse of
mother by her father are “No” (reference) and “Yes.”
Potential Confounders
In the previous literature, women’s age, education, employment status, and
marital status have been used as predictors of IPV justification in addition to
their exposure to media (Aboagye et al., 2021; Jesmin, 2015; Waltermaurer
et al., 2013). Moreover, the residential status and household wealth quintile
have also been used to predict IPV justification (Aboagye et al., 2021; Jesmin,
2015; Waltermaurer et al., 2013). Therefore, we have adjusted our model
with respondent’s empowerment, respondent’s employment status, respon-
dent’s and her husband’s education, household wealth status, respondent’s
age at first marriage or cohabitation, age of respondent’s husband at the time
of the interview, number of children ever born to the respondent,
Mehfooz et al. 5497
respondent’s residential status, and if she owns house or land. Two periods,
2001 to 2010 and 2011 to 2020 were included as time fixed effect, and coun-
tries as categorical variables were included in the model as country fixed
effects. Time fixed effects capture the changes in women’s attitude toward
IPV that have occurred because of institutional changes such as legislative
frameworks, changes in the public attitudes brought about by advocacy
groups and mainstream and social media, and changes in men’s attitudes to
the women’s empowerment agenda being pursued at the global level and in
LMICs. Sustainable Development Goals also consider it a goal to get rid of
violence. The categories of each variable are given in Table 2, with the first
category as the reference.
Moreover, we included women’s empowerment as an important con-
founding factor because women’s empowerment is central to understanding
IPV (Jesmin, 2017). In the previous literature, women’s empowerment is
defined and operationalized in various ways. For example, Kabeer (1999)
considers women’s empowerment as their ability to exercise choice in three
dimensions: resources (both material and non-material), agency, and achieve-
ments. As IPUMS-DHS has limited information about women’s empower-
ment, we follow a more reductionist approach of Allendorf (2007), who
measured women’s empowerment as their household-level decision-making
role about their healthcare, their say in making large household purchases,
and their say in visiting their family or relatives. Following Zafar et al.
(2022), we developed an index of women’s empowerment by aggregating
these three indicators in two steps. First, we considered women’s empower-
ment as a scale of “fully empowered,” “empowered,” and “not empowered”
in the three individual dimensions. A woman is “fully empowered” if she
makes the decision all by herself. We consider a woman “empowered” if she
makes a joint decision (with her husband or someone else). A woman is con-
sidered “not empowered” if she has no say in the decision. This scale can
range between zero (when she has no say in all three dimensions) or three
(when she has a say in all the dimensions). In the second step, we split this
scale into two outcomes: “not empowered” the women who did not have any
say in any of the three dimensions, and “empowered” if she is wholly or par-
tially empowered in at least one dimension.
Statistical Analysis
The outcome variable for this study is women’s acceptance of IPV split into
“Does not accept IPV” as the reference group and “Accepts IPV” as the alter-
native category. We first did a bivariate association check to see if the wom-
en’s experience of interparental abuse and other covariates are significantly
5498 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
where Continentc takes two values: Africa (reference category) and Asia.
Finally, we wanted to see how interparental abuse affects women’s atti-
tude toward partner violence in five specific situations (is a husband justified
in beating his wife if she (i) goes out without telling her husband, (ii) neglects
the children, (iii) argues with the husband, (iv) refuses to have sex with the
husband, and (v) burns the food?). We regressed information about all five
situations in which a woman justified partner violence on interparental abuse
and a set of covariates.
IPV justification typeiτ,t = β0 + β1 Interparental abusei ,t
(3)
+ β j X i ,t + γ Continent c + δ Decade j + i ,t
to have sex with the husband, and (v) burns the food?) in which a woman may
potentially justify partner violence.
Results
Women have diverse experiences regarding interparental abuse. Supplemental
Table S1 gives the share of women who experience interparental abuse and
their attitude toward acceptance of partner violence. Around 50% of women
experienced interparental abuse in Afghanistan and Uganda, while less than
10% experienced interparental abuse in Benin, Jordan, and Burkina Faso.
Similarly, the highest ratio of acceptance for partner violence was recorded in
Afghanistan (82.7%), followed by Mali (79.7%), and Chad (75.8%). In com-
parison, very little acceptance for partner violence was recorded in Jordan
(14.2%), Malawi (12.6%), South Africa (%.6%), and Nepal (0.8%).
Bivariate association (Table 1) suggests that the factors significantly asso-
ciated with acceptance of partner violence are women’s experience of inter-
parental abuse, women’s empowerment, women’s employment status,
education, age, number of children born, ownership of assets, and residential
status, in addition to their partner’s age and education, household wealth sta-
tus, and countries and continents and decades.
The multivariate logistic regression model (Model 1 in Table 2) suggests
that the odds of accepting the spousal violence are 1.62 times higher for the
women who witnessed their fathers beat their mothers in their childhood than
the women whose fathers did not beat their mothers (Adjusted odds ratios
[AOR] = 1.62, 95% CI [1.57, 1.66], p < .001). In addition to women’s experi-
ence of interparental abuse, the only factor associated with higher odds of
acceptance of violence was, counterintuitively, women’s employment status
(AOR = 1.10, 95% CI [1.07, 1.13], p < .001), which is explained in the discus-
sion of the results section.
The factors that are associated with lower acceptance of spousal violence
are women’s empowerment (AOR = 0.83, 95% CI [0.81, 0.86], p < .001), rich
household wealth status (AOR = 0.79, 95% CI [0.76, 0.82], p < .001), higher
levels of respondent’s education (AOR = 0.51, 95% CI [0.48, 0.55], p < 0.001
for higher education), and husband’s education (AOR = 0.76, 95% CI [0.72,
0.81], p < .001 for higher education), increased age of the respondent
(AOR = 0.79, 95% CI [0.76, 0.83], p < .001 for women aged 25–49) as well
as the age of husband (AOR = 0.92, 95% CI [0.87, 0.97], p < .001 for men
aged 40 and above), living in the urban areas (AOR = 0.83, 95% CI [0.79,
0.86], p < .001). The odds of acceptance of spousal violence is at the highest
in Afghanistan while women are least likely to accept spousal violence in
Mozambique (AOR = 0.06, 95% CI [0.05, 0.06], p < .001), Malawi
5500 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
(continued)
Mehfooz et al. 5501
Table 1. (continued)
Unacceptable* (%) Acceptable† (%) Prob.
Woman owns house or land
Does not possess 80.6 79.3 p < .000
(n = 1,274,137)
Possesses (n = 325,892) 19.4 20.7
Urban-rural status
Rural (n = 1,011,751) 58.1 71.8 p < .000
Urban (n = 588,278) 41.9 28.2
Continent
Africa (n = 1,060,385) 63.9 69.2 p < .000
Asia (n = 539,644) 36.1 30.8
*Share of women who do not accept spousal violence irrespective of the fact (i) if wife goes out without
telling her husband, (ii) if wife neglects the children, (iii) if wife argues with the husband, (iv) if wife refuses
to have sex with the husband, and (v) if wife burns the food.
†
Share of the women who justify spousal violence for at least one reason.
Model 1 Model 2
Women’s
acceptance of IPV Adj. OR 95% CI Adj. OR 95% CI
Father beat mother of respondent
No Ref.
Yes 1.617*** [1.574, 1.662] 1.757*** [1.711, 1.804]
Woman’s empowerment
Not empowered Ref.
Empowered 0.831*** [0.806,0.857] 0.785*** [0.762,0.809]
Woman’s employment status
Not working Ref.
Working 1.102*** [1.072, 1.132] 1.026 [1.000, 1.052]
Woman’s education
No education Ref.
Primary 1.001 [0.971, 1.033] 0.836*** [0.811, 0.861]
Secondary 0.815*** [0.787, 0.843] 0.663*** [0.641, 0.686]
Higher 0.510*** [0.477, 0.545] 0.376*** [0.352, 0.401]
Husband’s education
No education Ref.
Primary 1.014 [0.981, 1.048] 0.804*** [0.779, 0.830]
Secondary 0.932*** [0.900, 0.964] 0.767*** [0.741, 0.794]
Higher 0.762*** [0.722, 0.805] 0.646*** [0.612, 0.683]
(continued)
5502 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
Table 2. (continued)
Model 1 Model 2
Women’s
acceptance of IPV Adj. OR 95% CI Adj. OR 95% CI
Household wealth status
Poor Ref.
Middle 1.007 [0.977, 1.038] 1.085*** [1.053, 1.118]
Rich 0.789*** [0.762, 0.817] 0.990 [0.955, 1.026]
Husband’s age
<24 Ref.
25–39 0.930** [0.884, 0.979] 0.975 [0.929, 1.024]
40+ 0.917** [0.868, 0.969] 0.925** [0.877, 0.975]
Woman’s age
<18 Ref.
18–24 0.917*** [0.896, 0.938] 0.936*** [0.916, 0.957]
25–49 0.794*** [0.759, 0.830] 0.806*** [0.771, 0.841]
Number of children
No child Ref.
1–4 0.995 [0.956, 1.036] 0.970 [0.933, 1.009]
5+ 0.964 [0.919, 1.011] 1.014 [0.967, 1.063]
Woman owns house/land
Does not possess Ref.
Possesses 0.997 [0.963, 1.031] 1.106*** [1.073, 1.139]
Residence
Rural Ref.
Urban 0.825*** [0.794, 0.857] 0.755*** [0.728, 0.784]
Continent
Africa Ref.
Asia 1.230*** [1.190, 1.270]
Decade
2001–2010 Ref.
2011–2020 0.881*** [0.847, 0.917] 0.947** [0.916, 0.981]
Country-fixed Yes
effects
N 318,580 318,580
F 261.5 299.1
p 0 0
(AOR = 0.04, 95% CI [0.039, 0.049], p < .001), and Nepal (AOR = 0.04, 95%
CI [0.036, 0.048], p < .001). Acceptance of spousal violence has significantly
come down after 2010 compared with the study period between 2001 and
2010 (AOR = 0.88, 95% CI [0.85, 0.92], p < .001).
Country-Level Analysis
Figure 1 shows the unadjusted odds ratio of the logistic regression model
where women’s acceptance of spousal violence was regressed on women’s
history of abusive parental relationships. In 26 out of 31 countries, women
were significantly more likely to accept partner violence when they saw their
father beating their mother. In five countries, there was no significant
association.
Figure 2 shows the adjusted odds ratio of the logistic regression model. In
22 out of 27 countries, women were significantly more likely to accept
domestic violence when they saw their father beating their mother. In five
countries, there was no significant association. The adjusted model did not
have a sufficient number of multivariate observations in four countries
(Bangladesh, Benin, Liberia, and South Africa), and these were thus excluded
from the forest plot in Figure 2.
Figure 3 illustrates the acceptance of violence for five reasons, according
to which a woman is asked whether wife beating is justified in Asia versus
Africa. For all the five factors (refuses to have sex, neglects the children, goes
out without telling the husband, burns the food, and argues with him), the
percentage of acceptance of violence among African nations is found to be
higher compared to Asian nations, except for the factor burns the food, where
the acceptance of violence by women in Asian countries is higher than by
women in African countries.
Table 3. Effect of interparental violence on women’s attitude toward intimate partner violence.
5504
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Husband is justified in beating
wife if she Goes out without telling Neglects children Argues Refuses sex Burns food
(continued)
Table 3. (Continued)
Woman's age
<18 Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
18–24 0.926*** [0.904, 0.949] 0.939*** [0.917, 0.962] 0.906*** [0.884, 0.930] 0.889*** [0.865, 0.913] 0.905*** [0.879, 0.932]
25–49 0.826*** [0.786, 0.868] 0.822*** [0.784, 0.863] 0.788*** [0.749, 0.829] 0.792*** [0.748, 0.839] 0.785*** [0.735, 0.838]
Number of children
No child Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
1–4 1.011 [0.968, 1.057] 1.061** [1.017, 1.107] 0.998 [0.956, 1.043] 0.969 [0.923, 1.017] 0.982 [0.932, 1.035]
5+ 0.986 [0.936, 1.038] 0.999 [0.951, 1.049] 0.990 [0.941, 1.041] 0.986 [0.933, 1.043] 0.995 [0.937, 1.056]
Woman owns house/land
Does not possess Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
Possesses 0.954* [0.917, 0.993] 0.928*** [0.896, 0.961] 0.975 [0.941, 1.011] 1.029 [0.988, 1.072] 1.047* [1.001, 1.095]
Residence
Rural Ref Ref Ref Ref Ref
Urban 0.815*** [0.781, 0.850] 0.868*** [0.834, 0.903] 0.830*** [0.795, 0.866] 0.794*** [0.756, 0.834] 0.801*** [0.757, 0.847]
Country fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Decade fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
N 316,792 316,783 316,077 301,619 316,416
F 241.7 202.6 257.2 207.8 160.8
p 0 0 0 0 0
5505
5506 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
.25 1 4
IPV acceptance ↓
↓
IPV acceptance
when father beats mother when father beats mother
NOTE: Weighting is by sample size
Discussion
The most important finding of this study from the multivariate logistic regres-
sion model is that the odds of accepting the spousal violence are 1.62 times
higher for the women who witnessed their fathers beat their mothers in their
childhood than those whose fathers did not beat their mothers. The way
Mehfooz et al. 5507
.25 1 4
IPV acceptance ↓ IPV acceptance
↓
when father beats mother when father beats mother
NOTE: Weighting is by sample size
16.1
Refuses to have sex
32.3
Wife beating is justified if a woman
19.5
Neglects the children
31.5
Continent
14.4
Goes out without telling husband Africa
37.8
Asia
29.4
Burns food
27.4
25.5
Argues with him
34.9
0 10 20 30
Share of women answering "Yes" (%)
Women's attitude towards intimate partner violence
less painful emotion, is used as a protective emotion for the psyche. Therefore,
such a person uses violence mostly in situations when he/she is reliving his/
her painful experiences (Bandura, 1973; Scheff, 1979).
In addition to women’s experience of interparental abuse, the only factor
associated with higher odds of acceptance of violence was, counterintui-
tively, women’s employment status. Our findings are in line with some single
country analyses by Yount and Carrera (2006), when women experienced
greater domestic violence when they witnessed their mothers experiencing
domestic violence. However, this study focused on the experience of domes-
tic violence rather than acceptance. This can be explained in the context of
the male backlash hypothesis, as posited by Moore et al. (2021).
With a decrease in gender inequality in a country, males may try to find
ways to reaffirm their fading patriarchal control and counter the improved
status of working women by using violence. Women may thus become more
accomodating of spousal violence, especially when men use psychological
violence to exert their authority. A contracting gender gap as women over-
come their traditional gender role assignments and join the workforce serves
as a threat for men and leads to this “backlash effect” (Xie et al., 2012).
Moreover, secondary and higher education were found to be significantly
associated with acceptance of IPV, as shown in Table 3. This again may be
explained in light of the male backlash hypothesis, with women gaining
higher education becoming a threat to the cultural norms of society. Educated
Mehfooz et al. 5509
and employed women are thus exposed to violence because some cultures
and societies have stratified men and women in gender-specific roles and
norms (Thind et al., 2008). Table 3 also shows that the experience of interpa-
rental abuse predisposes women to accept partner violence for a larger num-
ber of reasons, such as neglecting children, burning food, etc. This indicates
that witnessing interparental abuse also impacts the severity of the accep-
tance of IPV for women in their relationships and increases their threshold for
acceptance of violence, thereby illustrating lasting psychological damage for
them.
Regarding the sociocultural differences between Africa and Asia, we
found that Asian women were significantly more likely to accept partner vio-
lence than African women (Model 2 in Table 3). Comparing the Asian and
African women with respect to the precise reasons for justifying partner vio-
lence reveals some interesting patterns. As shown in Figure 3, acceptance of
violence among African women is higher compared with Asian women on all
factors. The only exception is the case of the burning of food. Asian women
were more willing than their African counterparts to justify partner violence
if they burned food. This may reflect a major difference in African and Asian
cultural values. Studies find that in many countries, women eat last and least
(https://actionagainsthunger.ca/violence-against-women-is-also-eating-last-
and-least/). The husband or intimate partner is usually served food first in
Asian and typically South Asian cultural contexts (Hathi et al., 2021).
Cooking and serving good food is generally considered the wife’s primary
duty in most Asian countries as part of the gendered roles in society. Hence,
when women burn food, they are usually the center of criticism by their hus-
bands and family members, such as the in-laws in joint family systems.
Additionally, women themselves pay a lot of attention to ensuring the food
they cook is of good taste and quality. Therefore, these cultural norms in Asia
might reflect why women accept spousal violence if the food is burnt.
There is a discrepancy in the African and Asian attitudes toward IPV with
respect to the estimation method. Summary statistics in Table 1 suggest that
a larger share of African women was likely to accept IPV than their Asian
counterparts. Figure 3 also shows that a larger share of African women justi-
fied IPV than their Asian counterparts, except in the food burning subscale in
which a larger share of Asian women justified IPV. However, logistic regres-
sion suggests that Asian women were more accommodating of IPV. This
issue boils down to an old question as to why the coefficient sign in regres-
sion reverses when the model is controlled for with additional predictor(s).
Existing literature has identified Simpson’s paradox, Lord’s paradox, and
suppression effect as possible explanations for the reversal of the sign of the
coefficients, but existing literature warns that interpretation of the
5510 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
mortality ratio per 100,000 live births in South Asia was 163 (vs. 534 in Sub-
Saharan Africa). Female literacy rate (15–24 years) in South Asia was 88.9%
(vs. 74.2% in Sub-Saharan Africa), and adult literacy among 15+ years
women was 65.6% in South Asia (vs.59.4 in Sub-Saharan Africa). Gross
female school enrollment at the tertiary level was 25.3 in South Asia (vs. 9.5
in Sub-Saharan Africa). The share of women engaged in vulnerable employ-
ment (as a percentage of total female employment) was 73.7% in South Asia
(vs. 80% in Sub-Saharan Africa).
The highest acceptance ratio for partner violence was recorded in
Afghanistan, and the lowest was for Mozambique, Malawi, and Nepal.
Afghanistan’s historical and cultural characteristics might have resulted in
the higher acceptance of spousal violence against women (Samar et al.,
2014). Ahmed-Ghosh (2003) provides a comprehensive historical account of
Afghan women’s challenges. Historically, two eras in modern Afghan history
have shaped women’s socioeconomic status. First, the government of
Amanullah 1923 introduced comprehensive reforms to raise, among other
things, the women’s socioeconomic status in Afghan society, which faced
stiff resistance from conservative sections leading to the end of Amanullah’s
reign. Second, the communist-backed Peoples Democratic Party of
Afghanistan took office in Kabul in 1978 and forced an agenda of social
change, including empowering women, but this agenda also faced stiff resis-
tance from Mullah and tribal chieftains culminating in the war between
Afghanistan and the Soviet Union and the birth of Mujahideen. In 1989, the
Soviets left Afghanistan, and after a protracted civil war, Mujahedeen took
over Kabul in 1992. Under the Mujahideen, women were systematically
excluded from public space. In 1996, the Taliban took over and made it a
central plank of their public policy to control women’s behavior. Samar et al.
(2014) argued that following 9/11, Taliban forces capitalized on gender
inequality as part of their resistance and cultural ideology, which infringed on
women’s fundamental human rights.
The patriarchal norms of Afghanistan assign an inferior position to women
in the society and exclude women from the decision-making process at the
household level, which in turn normalizes wife beating in Afghanistan
(Akbary et al., 2022). Afghan women’s agency has also eroded because
Afghanistan has remained a conflict zone marred by wars and armed insur-
gency. As the women are subjected to rape, intimidation, and forced pregnan-
cies in conflict regions, the culture of violence against women permeates
domestic relationships, explaining why there is a high degree of acceptance
of domestic abuse against women in Afghanistan (Akbary et al., 2022).
Some factors associated with lower acceptance of spousal violence include
women’s empowerment, rich household wealth, increased age of the
5512 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)
respondent, and residence in urban areas. Findings from our study confirmed
that both individual and other household characteristics also significantly
explain women’s acceptance of domestic violence.
Concluding Remarks
The main finding of this study from the multivariate logistic regression model
illustrated that the odds of accepting the spousal violence are 1.62 times
higher for the women who witnessed their fathers beat their mothers in their
childhood than the women who did not witness such interparental abuse.
When violence against women occurs in front of children, children begin
to view women as having lower social status who may be humiliated,
Mehfooz et al. 5513
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article.
ORCID iD
Rafi Amir-ud-Din https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4100-3382
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
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Author Biographies
Musferah Mehfooz, PhD, is an Associate Professor (Tenured) in the Department of
Humanities at COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus. She has exten-
sively published on issues of religious psychology, spirituality, normative analysis of
interfaith dialog, family structures, and terrorism. She is a motivational speaker, and
actively participates in the advocacy initiatives for interfaith harmony.
5518 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38(7-8)