Spousal Concordance and Discordance in Justifying Wife Beating and Wife’s Experience of Physical Violence in India

Manas Ranjan Pradhan, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Harshita Chari, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The study assesses the spousal concordance and discordance in justifying wife beating and wife’s experience of physical violence using the information of 44,933 couples covered in the domestic violence module of the Indian National Family Health Survey-5 (2019/21). Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were performed on weighted data using Stata version 17.0. Adjusting spousal, household and community level characteristics, the likelihood of an experience of physical violence by the wife was higher among the couples where both justified wife-beating (UOR= 3.05, p<0.001; AOR= 2.02, p<0.001), followed by couples where the wife justified wife-beating and husband did not (UOR= 2.56, p<0.001; AOR= 1.92, p<0.001), and couples where husband justified wife-beating and wife did not (UOR= 1.39, p<0.001; AOR= 1.20, p<0.001), all compared to the couples where neither justify wife-beating. The study concludes that wives are more likely to experience physical violence when both spouses justify wife-beating, and the risk remains significantly elevated even when only the wife justifies it. Results suggest community-based education and awareness campaigns promoting gender equality, efforts to empower women, and multi-sectoral collaboration to positively change attitudes towards wife-beating and its prevalence, thus ensuring the welfare of women in India.

Keywords: Gender Dynamics, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Families, Unions and Households

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