Perceptions of domestic violence in mid-twentieth century communities

Transcribing and Analyzing

When do you consider that you have become an active member of the social order?

If I understand your question well, I started to interact with my community more after I first got into school (I was 7 years old in 1950). This meant that I travelled more and that I could talk to people from a series of backgrounds. It was probably the event that made it possible for me to acknowledge the complexity of the world.

Did you observe a lot of episodes involving domestic violence at that time?

Domestic violence was more common at that time and I believe that underprivileged homes were more at risk when considering the fact that these people experienced more hardship and had trouble controlling their emotions.

Did these events happen in environments that you interacted with?

My community was not necessarily an upper-class environment, but the fact that we saw less problems and that we respected values that were in disagreement with domestic violence made it possible for us to experience little to no such incidents. However, I had some friends who talked about issues they would see in their household. To a certain degree, domestic violence seemed to be relatively normal at that time, as rights were a debatable issue and women in particular were often discriminated.

How did you perceive most of these episodes -- do you consider that there was a reason for what happened or do you simply think that individuals involved did not understand the situation they were in?

Well, things were different back then and domestic violence was more debatable than it is today. Many were inclined to believe that some problems could only be solved through violence and acted accordingly. It was not necessarily that these people were evil or that they really wanted to harm individuals they were close to, as the environments they lived in and the fact that society as a whole did not employ much criticism with regard to such practices made them feel like it was normal for them to behave that way.

Do you think of yourself in the past as having a different perspective with regard to these events when compared to your present understanding of them?

I always considered that domestic violence was wrong, but something (as I previously said, it was probably the society I was living in) made me feel less critical about the concept back then. I hated it and I hated individuals doing it, but I also seemed to understand it -- I considered that this was part of society. Both the fact that I've accumulated a significant amount of knowledge through the years and the fact that things have changed for the better across time made me understand that violence is wrong regardless of circumstances.

Do you think society perceived the practice differently in the past from how it perceives it now?

Yes, like I previously mentioned, one of the reasons why domestic violence was more common in the past (at least from my perspective) was that people were more accepting of the practice.

How do you think change happened and what do you think about it -- did it represent a form of progress for society as a whole?

Change happened as the whole world changed. People became more educated and moral values started to see growing interest, with the general public becoming better acquainted with the difference between right and wrong. Although domestic violence is still common in some communities, from what I've seen, things in the community I have interacted with have changed significantly. Now most people there consider that domestic violence is horrible and that it needs to be punished severely.

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