NCJ Number
101176
Journal
Victimology Volume: 10 Issue: 1-4 Dated: (1985) Pages: 221-241
Date Published
1985
Length
21 pages
Annotation
The literature on family violence contains frequent reference to 'normative support' for the use of physical force by spouses, especially husbands.
Abstract
Such support has a long history, but there is little contemporary data on the degree to which such attitudes prevail at present, and in what proportions in the population. Greenblat (1983) reported evidence of generally low levels of acceptance of the position that it is sometimes appropriate to hit one's spouse; in response to open-ended questions, however, her respondents specified several circumstances that would make such actions appropriate to them. The present study focused exclusively upon attitudes towards husbands' slapping and beating their wives, and employed closed-ended measures of approval and tolerance of these actions under various conditions. A college student sample strongly condemned these acts in the abstract, but there were a number of legitimating circumstances that led to approval. Even where they disapproved, the level of condemnation varied from very mild to quite severe, depending upon perceptions of the wife's behavior and the husband's motivations. Respondents who scored more traditional in sex-role orientation showed higher degrees of approval and greater tolerance of husbands' physical force than did those with more feminist orientations. Further, study with a non-student sample seems warranted. (Author abstract)