Sociological Perspective on the Causes of Family Violence (From Violence and the Family, P 7-31, 1980, by Maurice R Green - See NCJ-70906)

• NCJ Number: 70907
• Author(s): M A Straus
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 25 pages
• Grant Number(s): MH27557; T32 MH15161
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare; University of New Hampshire
• Sale Source: Westview Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Publication from the Family Violence Research Program Series at the University of New Hampshire

Annotation

The annual incidence rate for American family violence is reported from a nationally representative sample of 2,143 families, and the social causes related to family violence are identified and discussed.

Abstract

Each year, about 16 out of every 100 American couples experience at least one incident in which one of the spouses uses force on the other. In the case of child abuse, 14 out of every 100 children per year are the victims of parental attacks serious enough to be in the Child Abuse Index. Each year, about 1 out of 5 children strikes a parent, and 8 out of 10 children have a physical fight with a sibling each year. Most family violence is precipitated by a combination of normal process and special situations likely to precipitate violence. Some of the factors contributing to family violence are (1) the learned association between love and violence conditioned by physical punishment from infancy; (2) the advocation of physical force as a means of social control; (3) the socially structured antagonism between the sexes and between generations; (4) the assignment of family responsibilities and obligations on the basis of age and sex rather than on the basis of competence and interest. Other contributing factors are (5) the culturally conditioned role of the husband as the head of the family, a role to be enforced by physical force if challenged; (6) the high level of violence in other spheres of life which carries over into the family; (7) the frustrations of poverty and unemployment; and (8) the social isolation of families from a network of kin and community, so that supportive and inhibiting agents that would counter family violence are absent. Using these factors, a checklist of situations believed to influence family violence was applied to the families in the national sample, and a significant relationship was found between family violence and the presence of checklist factors. Tabular and graphic data and notes and 31 references are provided.