The Use of Physical Violence Against Intimate Partners by Female College Students in India

Abstract

The majority of previous studies on the prevalence and impact of family violence focus on male-to-female perpetration. However, in India, studies have found that a frequent perpetrator of violence against a family member is the mother-in-law toward the daughter-in-law. Little is known about the risk factors associated with being a female perpetrator of violence toward intimate partners and family members. This study looked at female participants in India from the International Dating Violence Study 2001–2006 (ICPSR 29583). Of the 73 ever-partnered women, 41.1% reported using physical violence against an intimate partner. The vast majority (90%) of women who reported using physical violence against a partner were also victims of intimate partner violence and were more likely to have had a history of childhood exposures to violence. This has important implications when considering interventions and resources for female victims and perpetrators of family violence. The findings of this study will be useful for further research on the use of family violence by other female perpetrators such as mothers-in-law.

Introduction

Intimate partner violence includes “physical violence, sexual violence, stalking and psychological aggression (including coercive tactics) by a current or former intimate partner…” (Breiding et al. 2015), and these behaviors are used by one partner to gain power and control over another intimate partner (US Department of Justice 2015). The majority of studies that examine the prevalence and health impact of intimate partner violence victimization focus on male-to-female perpetration. For example, the World Health Organization survey of 10 countries found that the lifetime prevalence of male-to-female physical intimate partner violence victimization ranged from 15% to 71% (Garcia-Moreno et al. 2006). Another international study of eight middle- and low-income countries found that up to 31% of women experience male-to-female intimate partner violence victimization (Fleming et al. 2015) based on a lifetime prevalence. In the United States, one-quarter to one-half of women have been victims of intimate partner violence at some point in their lives (Black et al. 2011).

The majority of studies on intimate partner violence in India also examined male-to-female perpetration, with the spouse being the most common perpetrator. Prevalence estimates of intimate partner violence are usually based on female victims and vary depending on the study setting. For example, the lifetime prevalence of intimate partner violence among female victims from the 2005–2006 India National Family Health Survey (Speizer and Pearson 2011) was 37.9%. The lifetime prevalence in medical settings was found to be 30–40% at orthopedic trauma hospitals (Sohani et al. 2013) and up to 55% at outpatient psychiatric clinics (Chandra et al. 2009). The prevalence of intimate partner violence victimization of female partners is higher in India than in Mexico (17.0%), Bosnia (24.2%), Brazil (24.6%), Chile (29.3%), and Croatia (31.7%) but lower than in Rwanda (39.1%) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (45.1%) (Fleming et al. 2015). Risk factors of intimate partner violence in India include low household income, low education level, low caste, alcohol use by husbands (Babu and Kar 2010; Mahapatro et al. 2012), and the disparity in the socioeconomic status between women and men (Dalal and Lindqvist 2012).

Previous studies that examined the association between childhood abuse and witnessing violence and intimate partner violence also mainly focused on women who were victims of intimate partner violence. Studies have found that childhood physical abuse increases the risk of being a perpetrator and a victim of physical intimate partner violence (Chokkanathan 2012; Jeyaseelan et al. 2004, 2007; Webermann et al. 2014). Childhood sexual abuse is particularly associated with sexual intimate partner violence victimization in adulthood (Jaffe et al. 2012).

Likewise, previous studies on intimate partner violence and substance use in India focused on substance abuse among male perpetrators and female victims. Intimate partner violence perpetration is prevalent among men who abuse drugs (Bhatt 1998; Subodh et al. 2014), and alcohol use is one of the factors associated with male-to-female physical intimate partner violence (Ragavan et al. 2014). Men's substance use also increases the risk of perpetrating sexual intimate partner violence (Kumar and Sharma 2008), whereas women's substance use is associated with being a victim of intimate partner violence (Sarkar 2008).

Violence against women in India is closely related to social and cultural norms and the notion of power dynamics within a family (Kimuna et al. 2013). As such, the majority of research on violence against women in India focuses on family violence. In India, a woman is often abused by the female and male relatives of her husband (Gangoli and Rew 2011; Panchanadeswaran and Koverola 2005). A son's wife has a lower status than the men and the older women in the family, and this power differential may contribute to the increased incidence of female perpetration of violence within families (Fernandez 1997; Gangoli and Rew 2011). Dowry demands also trigger violence by a husband and his family against a young bride (Gangoli and Rew 2011).

Intimate partner violence and abuse from in-laws are often correlated with each other, and typically, women who experience intimate partner violence are more likely to be abused by in-laws (Raj et al. 2011). Abuse from in-laws is a big problem, and one thing that may relate to it is life-style patterns of abuse. However, little is known regarding the risk factors associated with becoming a female perpetrator of intimate partner violence. It is important to elucidate factors that increase the risk of a female perpetrating violence, so that effective interventions can be designed to end this form of violence in India.

The purpose of this study was to increase the knowledge of risk factors for women who use physical violence against their intimate partners in India. This study focuses on the risk factors of the use of violence by female college students toward their intimate (usually male) partners. Examining risk factors for intimate partner perpetration by young women is important, because perpetration at a young age may be related to perpetration later in their life. The knowledge from this study will provide important information in developing interventions to prevent family violence in India. The findings of this study will help guide further research on the use of family violence by mothers-in-law toward their daughters-in-law in India.

Method

Data

The data were obtained from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the International Dating Violence Study (IDVS) 2001–2006 (ICPSR 29583). The data were collected from college students at 68 universities in 32 countries by the members of an IDVS research consortium in each country where the data were collected. The detailed information of the entire study, including data collection procedures, is available at http://pubpages.unh.edu/∼mas2/. The current study analyzed the data from India in the IDVS data set. The original collector of the data, ICPSR, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based on such uses.

Sample

The Indian data had 193 participants (59 men and 134 women) from two universities, one in Pune and the other in Calcutta. Among the 134 female participants, 73 ever-partnered participants were used in the analysis of this current study. The average age was 22.2 (SD = 3.2) years. The relationship types were as follows: dating (n = 54, 74%), engaged (n = 16, 21.9%), and married (n = 3, 4.1%). Two of the participants (2.7%) had a same-sex partner.

Measures

All measures used in the IDVS have been tested for validity and reliability and have been used widely in many countries (Straus 2004; Straus et al. 1999).

Intimate partner violence

Intimate partner violence was measured using the revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2) (Straus et al. 1996). The CTS2 has been used widely in the United States and in many other countries (Strauss 2008). The CTS2 measures both perpetration and victimization of intimate partner violence. Physical intimate partner violence (physical assault) items included incidents such as kicking, pushing or shoving, or using a knife or gun by a partner or self. Psychological intimate partner violence (psychological aggression) items included harmful verbal incidents by a partner or self. Sexual intimate partner violence (sexual coercion) items included statements such as “made my partner have sex without condom” and “insisted on sex when my partner did not want to but did not use physical force.”

Each type of intimate partner violence had separate sub-scales for severe and minor intimate partner violence. In this study, the lifetime prevalence of victimization and perpetration of intimate partner violence (i.e., physical, psychological, and/or sexual) was used for analysis. The CTS2 does not take into consideration the context in which the physical violence occurred (Gondolf 2014). However, the use of the CTS2 in this study did allow for linking the strong association between women using violence in a relationship and being victims of relationship violence.

Other measures

All other items were assessed using a 4-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree) (Straus et al. 1999). Some of the items are reversely coded. The data set has four different scoring methods. This study used the scoring method based on the theoretical maximum score, which scaled from 0 to 100. Higher scores indicate higher levels of experience or symptoms.

The following individual characteristics and experiences were included in the analysis based on previous studies on intimate partner violence: history of childhood sexual abuse (Devries et al. 2011; Ouellet-Morin et al. 2015), violence approval (Eaton and Matamala 2014; Field and Caetano 2003), violence socialization (Chokkanathan 2012; Jeyaseelan et al. 2004, 2007), depression (Warshaw et al. 2009), and substance abuse (Connelly et al. 2013; Evans and Shapiro 2011; Illangasekare et al. 2013). Childhood sexual abuse history includes sexual abuse by an adult family or nonfamily member and a child family or nonfamily member and addresses two kinds of sexual abuse: (1) “An adult in family made me look at or touch their private parts (sex organs), or looked at or touched mine” and (2) “An adult in my family had sex with me (vaginal, anal, or oral).”

The substance abuse statements measure alcohol consumption (four items, e.g., “I sometimes drink enough to feel really high or drunk”) and other drug usage (four items, e.g., “I worry that I have a drug problem”). The violence approval measure has three subtopics: (1) family violence (four items, e.g., “It is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking”); (2) male violence (three items, e.g., “A man should not walk away from a physical fight with another man”); and (3) sexual aggression (three items, e.g., “A woman who has been raped probably asked for it”).

The violence socialization scale included two parts: violence socialization within a family (five items, e.g., “When I was a kid, I saw my mother or father kick, punch, or beat up their partner” and “My father or mother told me to hit back if someone hit me or insulted me”); violence socialization by nonfamily (three items, e.g., “When I was a kid, I often saw kids who were not in my family get into fights and hit each other” and “When I was a kid, people (adults or kids) who were not part of my family, pushed, shoved or slapped me, or threw things at me”). Eight items measured depression (e.g., “I have thought about killing myself” and “I feel sad quite often”). Statements measuring substance abuse included alcohol use (four items, e.g., “I sometimes drink enough to feel really high or drunk”) and other drug use (four items, e.g., “I worry that I have a drug problem”).

Analysis

Data were analyzed using SPSS (version 22). Descriptive statistics were used to describe the distribution of the outcome and independent variables. Comparisons between the participants who used physical violence against a partner and those who never used physical violence against a partner were conducted using Pearson's Chi-square tests for categorical variables (if each cell had more than five respondents) and independent-samples t-tests for continuous variables.

Results

Of the 73 ever-partnered women, 41.1% (n = 30) had physically assaulted an intimate partner. Table 1 describes the comparison of intimate partner violence victimization between participants who had used physical violence against a partner and those who had not. The analysis shows that using physical violence against a partner is associated with being a victim of intimate partner violence. Of the 30 participants who had ever used physical violence against a partner, 96.7% had used psychological abuse against a partner, and 53.3% had used sexual coercion against a partner.

Table 1.

Lifetime Prevalence of Victimization and Female Use of Physical Violence Against a Partner

	Total (n = 73)	Subset of the total (n = 73) that:
	Reported ever being victimized by victimization type	Ever used physical violence (n = 30)	Never used physical violence (n = 43)
Physical IPV victimization^a	31 (42.5)	27 (90.0)	4 (9.3)
Psychological IPV victimization^a	51 (69.9)	28 (93.3)	23 (53.5)
Sexual IPV victimization^a	19 (26.0)	13 (43.3)	6 (14.0)
Psychological abuse against a partner^**	55 (75.3)	29 (96.7)	26 (60.5)
Sexual coercion against a partner^a	19 (26.0)	16 (53.3)	3 (7.0)
Total count of victimization	175	113	62

n (%).

n per cell <5.

p < 0.01. Pearson Chi-square tests comparing participants who had ever used physical violence against a partner and those who had never used physical violence against a partner. n per cell ≥5 only.

Many of the participants who used physical violence toward a partner (n = 30) were also victims of physical (90%), psychological (93.3%), and sexual intimate partner violence (43%). Among the 43 participants who had never used physical violence against a partner, 9.3% had been victims of physical intimate partner violence, 53.5% had been victims of psychological intimate partner violence, and 14% had been victims of sexual intimate partner violence. About 60% of participants who had not used physical violence against a partner (n = 43) had used psychological abuse toward a partner, and 7% had been sexually abusive toward a partner.

Table 2 presents individual characteristics and abuse history among the participants. Participants who had used physical violence toward a partner were more likely to report being victims of childhood abuse (p < 0.01), experiencing violence socialization (p < 0.05), and abusing substances (p < 0.05) than those participants who had not used physical violence toward a partner.

Table 2.

Comparison Between Participants Who Had Ever Used Physical Violence Against a Partner and Those Who Had Never Used: History of Childhood Sexual Abuse Victimization, and Mental Health and Violence-Related Experiences

	Total (n = 73)	Subset of the Total (n = 73) that:
	Reported risk factors	Ever used physical violence (n = 30)	Never used physical violence (n = 43)
Childhood sexual abuse^**	15.9 (19.6)	24.0 (22.0)	10.3 (15.7)
Mental health
Depression	31.5 (15.0)	30.6 (15.9)	32.2 (14.5)
Substance abuse^*	13.0 (15.0)	17.4 (18.3)	9.9 (11.6)
Violence-related experience/attitudes
Violence approval	45.3 (13.0)	45.7 (12.6)	45.0 (13.4)
Violence socialization^*	27.2 (12.8)	30.8 (12.6)	24.6 (12.4)

Mean (SD).

p < 0.05. Independent-samples t-tests comparing participants who had ever used physical violence against a partner and those who had never used. ^**p < 0.01.

Higher scores indicate higher levels of experience, attitudes, or history. Score ranges from 0 to 100.

Discussion

This study described the risk factors associated with the use of physical violence against intimate partners by female college students in India. There are two important findings. First, the women who used physical violence against their partners were more likely to be perpetrators of psychological abuse and victims of all sorts of abuse. Second, women who used physical violence against their partners were more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse, and violence socialization, and to abuse substances compared with participants who did not use physical violence against their partners.

The results of this study suggest that the vast majority of women who use physical violence against their partners are also victims of intimate partner violence. These results may be applicable to college students' intimate relationships in other countries. Bidirectional violence is common among college students in many countries of the IDVS (Straus 2008). Female use of physical violence against a partner has been shown to be related to self-defense (Shorey et al. 2010), violence resistance (Gondolf 2012), anger, and stress (Leisring 2013). Interventions for female “perpetrators” of intimate partner violence may need to be tailored toward victim services as well.

Our findings support previous studies that found an association between childhood sexual and physical abuse and the risk of becoming a victim of intimate partner violence in adulthood (e.g., Barrios et al. 2015; Widom et al. 2014). The results of this study add new knowledge to existing studies, in that childhood sexual abuse may be associated with female use of violence against a partner and victimization by a partner. In India, approximately one-fourth of schoolgirls experience sexual violence (Deb and Walsh 2012); therefore, prevention efforts for childhood sexual abuse may reduce not only childhood sexual abuse but also intimate partner violence victimization in adulthood, the use of violence by females in intimate relationships, and the use of violence against others in the family such as a daughter-in-law. In addition, our study expanded the relationship between alcohol use and violence by finding an association between substance use and female use of violence in a relationship. This study adds new knowledge about the potential relationship between women who use violence against a partner and substance abuse in India.

The results of this study suggest that childhood abuse and/or violence exposure are risk factors associated with the use of physical violence against an intimate partner by female college students in India. Studies have found that in India, being a victim of in-law abuse increases the risk of perpetrating abuse in later life toward a daughter-in-law (Gangoli and Rew 2011). Future research is necessary to examine whether childhood sexual and physical abuse and witnessing violence are associated with perpetrating violence against daughters-in-law. Female use of violence against a partner in college should be assessed to see whether this is a risk factor for being a victim or perpetrator of in-law abuse later in life. Understanding the life course perspective of victimization and perpetration of family violence will be helpful in developing family violence prevention programs, especially those geared toward ending childhood victimization. This could potentially stop the transmission of family violence from mothers-in-law to daughters-in-law, and then, eventually, to future daughters-in-law.

Although this study increased knowledge about women who use violence against their partners in India, which previously had not been examined, there are some limitations worth noting. The sample size was too small to conduct further detailed analysis of associations among variables. The data were collected in only two universities in India, which limits their generalizability to an entire college student population in India and to those young adults who are not in college. An important limitation of this study that deserves special mention is the tool used to collect the perpetration data.

Despite the limitations, this study contributes to the research on female use of violence in intimate relationships in India that had not been previously examined. Future research on female victims of intimate partner violence who also use violence in their relationships will be important to further examine the issue of female perpetration of family violence and, ultimately, may help women break the cycle of intimate partner violence and other forms of family violence across generations in India.

Footnotes

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

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