WUNRN
24 March 2010
Bangladesh - Dowry & Physical Violence Against Women
Studies on violence against women have
repeatedly shown that such violence occurs least in egalitarian relationships
and that lack of power predicts violence. High rates of wife abuse have long
been reported in
To examine the link between dowry demand and physical wife violence, ICDDR,B recently studied the relationship between dowry demand, dowry payment, lack of dowry demand and physical spousal violence. The study investigated whether the issue of payment or presence of dowry demand in marriage reflecting patriarchal attitudes of the marital family underlie the relationship between dowry and wife abuse.
In marriages where no dowry was demanded, rural women were less likely to experience physical abuse, and all women experienced less frequent and less severe abuse compared with marriages where dowry was both demanded and fully paid. This suggests that in general, a demand for dowry predicts the extent, frequency and severity of abuse towards a wife, regardless of the status of dowry payment......
A wife is more likely to experience physical violence and experience it more frequently and severely in a relatively more patriarchal community and marital home by a husband demonstrating patriarchal attitudes. In general, dowry as an indicator of patriarchal attitude predicts wife abuse and its frequency and severity. When a woman faces a dowry demand for her marriage, nonpayment and partial payment of dowry increases her vulnerability to physical abuse. It appears that it is families who demand dowry that may be more likely to perpetrate or tolerate violence. It is hence the underlying patriarchal attitude, leading to dowry demands, rather than non-or partial-payment of dowry, which provides fertile ground for physical wife abuse.
As Ruchira Tabassum Naved, Head of the Gender
Human Rights and Health Program at ICDDR,B and co-author of the study
elucidates, it is these underlying patriarchal ideas that are made manifest in
dowry demands which must be addressed: Dowry related violence against women has
long been recognized in the context of
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