domestic violence
A concept which refers to coercive, threatening, controlling, violent behaviour in the home. It may be physical, psychological, emotional, or sexual. First publicized by feminists in the 1970s, it was initially known as wife battery, and referred to violence between husband and wife, usually exercised by men over women. Recognition that such violence might extend to children and other family members, but also that some women are violent towards their male partners, meant that the term shifted to domestic violence, thus referencing where the violence takes place rather than who is its victim. As increasing numbers of people began to cohabit without being married and as violence in homosexual relationships became more widely known, the term ‘intimate partner violence’ was coined, to move away from the idea of domestic violence as identified with heterosexual, married couples. In many cultures, especially where people live in extended families, domestic violence is known as family violence, and may involve cross-generational, mother-in-law to daughter-in-law violence, rather than just violence between intimate partners.... ...
Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
