Community Response to Violence against Wives: Charivari, Abstract Justice and Patriarchy

Abstract

Here we analyze the forms of community and institutional responses to the problem of wife beating. The regulation of domestic affairs in European communities is traced from the fifteenth century to the present. The historical analysis begins with direct and personal responses of members of the community, such as misrules and charivaris, and traces the development of the more abstract and impersonal responses of the state institutions that emerged during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both community and institutional forms of response were directed at upholding patriarchal authority and the husband's right to control his wife through various means, including the use of physical force. The intent was not to stop the violence but to set limits on the amount of violence a husband might use in pursuing his rights. With the transformation from ritualized forms of community response to abstract forms of institutional regulation, battered women were forced to seek help from institutions, such as the police, that were not established to deal with problems of domestic order and that remained relatively unconcerned with the problem of wife beating. The refuge movement within the Women's Aid movement in Britain is trying in an egalitarian way to return the problem to women and the community and also to get social agencies to respond positively. It rejects male violence unequivocally and challenges the patriarchical domination underlying-the acceptance and continuation of wife beating.

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