NCJ Number
210570
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 20 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2005 Pages: 191-200
Date Published
June 2005
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study examined the effects of participant sex, victim dress, and traditional attitudes influencing the tendency to blame a marital rape victim.
Abstract
Even though research has shown that marital rape is a crime that affects more than one in seven wives, relatively little research has investigated this topic. However, in the past decade, researchers have begun to investigate how others see the marital rape victim. A study conducted in 1990 found that participants rated the victim of marital rape as being partially responsible for the assault. This current study investigated whether the manner in which a victim of marital rape was dressed would influence participants' ratings of her responsibility and determine the influence of participant sex and attitudes on victim responsibility. The study hypothesized that males would rate the victim as being more responsible and deserving of the attack than would females, and that the victim dressed in a seductive manner would be held more responsible and deserving of the attack. The study consisted of 160 male and female college undergraduates who completed 28-items in the Attitudes in Marriage Scale. The results did not support the hypothesis. Both males and females agreed that the incident was rape, but males demonstrated a tendency to agree that the victim deserved more responsibility than females. The results supported the latter hypothesis that attitudes would affect causal judgments of the victim. Participants holding more traditional attitudes toward marriage assigned greater responsibility to the victim and rated the victim as being more deserving of the attack compared to participants holding more egalitarian attitudes towards marriage. The results indicated that attitudes are often overlooked as a contributing factor to the judgment of marital rape victims. Tables, appendix and references