Domestic violence in northern India

This study examined the prevalence and characteristics of wife abuse as rep orted by nearly 6,700 married men living in five districts of northern Indi a during 1995-1996. In addition, associations between wife abuse and sociod emographic factors were investigated to enable two theoretical/conceptual p erspectives regarding abuse to be evaluated: that abuse is more common amon g families under stress and among more "private" families. The district-spe cific percentages of men who reported physically abusing their wives ranged from 18% to 45%, with 18-40% of the men in each district having had noncon sensual sex with their wives and 4-9% having physically forced their wives to have sex. The authors used logistic regression analyses to control for a variety of sociodemographic variables and found positive associations betw een wife abuse and stress-related factors, including the husband having a l ow educational level, the couple living in poverty, the husband being young when he first lived with his wife, and the couple having multiple children . Contrariwise, there was no strong empirical support for the idea that wif e abuse may be more common in more "private" families.