Domestic Violence and Religion

Paper Summary:

Domestic violence is an important social issue. There are many explanations of why it occurs and what supports its continuation, including a feminist explanation that patriarchal culture and religion, contribute extensively to its occurrence. The paper explores this perception by reviewing several sources of literature. The paper shows that generally, literature on the subject is inconclusive, since it is ambiguous about the role of religion in relationship to domestic violence. It can both support domestic violence and condemn it. The paper follows up the literature review with a small-scale study exploring the incidence of domestic violence in two African-American congregations, one Pentecostal and one Black Muslim, using Straus' (1996) revised Conflict Tactics Scale.

From the Paper:

"The literature is ambiguous about the role of religion in domestic violence. Clearly the religions cited are patriarchal, with male authority predominating both in the church and the home. However, this does not mean that these are automatically abusive environments. In some instances, as Stotland's (2000) case study, men used religion to reinforce their control and justify their abuse. In other instances, as in Clark's (1997) discussion of Canadian evangelical communities, there was a wide variation in how pastors responded to domestic violence and how women were treated when suffering abuse. As Thistlethwaite (1996) indicated, there are clearly other factors involved. Nonetheless, religion and its tendency toward male control, authority, and entitlement is one of them."

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