An Examination of the Patterns of, and Reasons For Domestic Violence in Society

Domestic violence is defined by the Women’s Aid Federation (2008) as ‘physical, psychological, sexual or financial violence that takes place within an intimate or family-type relationship and forms a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. It may involve partners, ex-partners, household members or other relatives.’ There may be problems with the term ‘domestic violence’ since different people have different definitions, and what some would consider to be domestic violence, others may not. Many people believe that domestic violence is rare and is the behaviour of mentally unstable or disturbed people, but sociologists argue that this is not the case.

For example, the British Crime Survey (2007) tells us that domestic violence accounts for almost a sixth of all violent crime, indicating that it is clearly too widespread to just be the actions of a few individuals. Catriona Mirrlees-Black’s (1999) survey of 16000 people supports this evidence, as she found that there are roughly 6.6 million cases of domestic violence a year, and about half of these involve physical injury.

Sociologists realise that domestic violence follows specific social patterns. One of these patterns is that this type of violence is mainly carried out by men and against women.

Kathryn Coleman et al (2007) discovered that it was more likely for a woman to experience domestic violence than a man. Similar to this, Mirrlees-Black found that most victims are women and 99% of all incidents against women are committed by men. Another pattern she came across was that almost one in four women has been assaulted or attacked by a partner at least once, and this happens repeatedly to roughly one in eight women.

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These patterns are confirmed by Russell and Rebecca Dobash’s (1979) research based on police and court records and interviews with women in women’s refuges. They found that aggressive incidents could be initially caused by ‘a challenge to the husband’s authority’ i.e. his wife asking him why he was home late. Dobash and Dobash argue that marriage justifies violence against women by giving men power over their wives and making women dependent on their husbands. A pattern found by Stephanie Yearnshire (1997) is that typically a woman suffers 35 assaults a year before reporting it to the police, and that domestic violence is one of the least likely crimes to be reported. This means that official statistics are not high in validity, so we cannot get a true picture of the amount of domestic violence that occurs.

Radical feminists argue that the reason for domestic violence is patriarchy, which is a system that maintains men’s power. Kate Millett (1970) and Shulamith Firestone (1970) believe that the main division in society is the division between men and women. Radical feminists claim that marriage and the family are the main source of oppression of women, as within the family men control women by threatening to or actually using domestic violence. The police and courts are sometimes reluctant to properly deal with incidents of domestic violence, and radical feminists would argue that this is because of male domination of state institutions. Alternatively, Faith Robertson Elliot (1996) rejects the radical feminist beliefs about domestic violence, and argues that not all men are aggressive are most are against domestic violence. Radical feminists ignore this view, and they also cannot explain violence committed by women, either against children or male partners. For instance, Mirrlees-Black found that roughly one in seven men has been assaulted, and this has happened repeatedly to around one in 20 men. Sociologists have discovered that there are lots of other groups that are vulnerable to domestic violence, not only women.

Mirrlees-Black found that some of these social groups are children and young people, people from lower social classes or live in rented accommodation, people who have low incomes or financial problems and people who use illegal drugs or drink large amounts of alcohol. The British Crime Survey (2007) states that for 39% of cases the offender was under the influence of alcohol. Richard Wilkinson (1996) argues that the reason for these patterns is the result of stress on family members caused by social inequality. He believes that people on low incomes will usually have higher stress levels, thus increasing the risk of conflict and violence within the family. Wilkinson and Mirrlees-Black’s findings tell us that people with less power, wealth, status or income are usually at the highest risk of domestic violence. The problem with Wilkinson’s statement is that he does not explain why women are the main victims rather than men. In conclusion, the main patterns of domestic violence are that most victims are women, and 99% of all incidents against women are committed by men, on average a woman is the victim of 35 assaults a year before she reports it, and groups such as children, people from lower social classes and on low incomes are also at risk of domestic violence.

Some other patterns are that two women die a week due to domestic violence and a lot of cases begin during pregnancy. The main reasons for these patterns are that marriage legitimates violence against women (as argued by Dobash and Dobash), the patriarchal system maintains men’s power (as claimed by radical feminists) and stress causes domestic violence (Wilkinson’s belief). There are problems defining the term ‘domestic violence’, since it means different things to different people, and there are different levels of seriousness of domestic violence. There are also issues with the validity of official statistics, as not all accounts of violence are reported, and police may be unwilling to record, investigate or prosecute cases that are reported to them. Some methods such as interviews or questionnaires may be problematic as people may not tell the truth, refuse to answer the question, forget or exaggerate. This means that the results produced may not be valid.