Domestic violence: causes, prevention, and intervention strategies

Domestic Violence

Each year, many battered women kill their husbands after years of abuse and violence. Murder, obviously, is against the law, making the actions of these women an offense. The killing abusive husbands forces society to reconcile the desperation of these women with a need to respect and maintain the law. Such reconciliation can involve the use of self-defense as a legal tactic, reduced sentences, and potentially charging women with a crime other than murder.

Over 1.5 million women seek medical intervention in the U.S. As the result of assault by their male partners. There are many others who never seek such treatment. Such abuse, over time, can ultimately drive a small minority of these women to commit murder (Brown).

The legal system largely reacts by sentencing these women to jail, out of adherence to the law's strong prohibition against murder. At the same time, society, in the interest of justice, demands that the history of violence in these situations be considered.

Self-defense is one of the most common defenses used by women who kill their abusive partners (Ludsin). Here, the law provides at least a limited means to reconcile respect for the law with the desperation of victims who kill their abusers. At the same time, self-defense pleas are often not effective in situations where the murder occurs in a non-confrontational situation where the woman is not in immediate danger.

Reconciling the desperation of battered women with a respect for the law is fraught with problems. If the legal system did not prosecute women who kill their abusers, it would largely be negating its responsibility to uphold the law against murder. At the same time, an unaltered prosecution women who kill their abusers clearly fails to take into consideration the unique aspects of the case. A situation where women who kill their abusers receive reduced sentences is one way to reconcile such differences. Another way to reconcile these differences may be to try such women for a crime other than murder, perhaps by creating a lesser crime such as domestic abuse murders, where sentences are less harsh.

Balancing respect for cultural differences about domestic violence with the North American view against family violence is often problematic. Completely respecting cultural differences on this issue ignores the issue of individual rights, while simply ignoring cultural differences is a great cultural imposition. Successful reconciliation may involve education about basic individual rights, while attempting to respect cultural differences as much as possible in this context.

In many areas of the world, views on domestic violence differ significantly from the North American perspective. In many countries, women are seen as property of husbands and fathers, thus giving these males license to treat the women (their property) as they wish. For example, some Muslim countries do not see marital rape as a crime. However, in North America, women have equal rights to men, and cannot legally be considered as property.

Given these profound differences, it can be difficult to balance respect for different cultures against the moral perspective of North American culture. One solution can simply be to disregard such cultural differences, and claim that the North American viewpoint is the only valid view. However, this can create an atmosphere of great division, and a feeling that North American morals are being imposed on another culture.

At the opposite extreme would be to completely accede to a given culture's views about domestic violence. This would simply be an extreme form of cultural relativism, where the North American point-of-view would have to give way to that of a different culture.