Religion has since its beginnings been used as a means of social control, and is no less the case when it comes to domestic and sexual violence. Domestic violence or intimate partner violence is defined as violence by a spouse of cohabitating partner against the other. Whether it is male or female perpetrated, but mainly focusing upon male perpetrated violence in most research studies done. Most commonly when people hear religion and sexual violence or abuse they immediately think of the Catholic Church and all the issues associated with pedophilia. The church has some data available to examine on the matter and its results are somewhat surprising.
How different religions construct gender roles for families and the type of familial structure may play a role in preventing or perpetrating violence. It is a commonly held belief by most people that the patriarchal family structure in strict religious families can increase the risk of abuse, which has gotten both support and disbelief from researchers. Intimate partner violence is a large problem across the country with estimates between 1.5 million women and 834,700 men being in some form abused by their partners (Cunradi, Caetano & Schafer, 2002). Those numbers sound daunting, and as Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) say that roughly 28% of all couples whether male female or same sex experience some type of physical abuse or violence in relationships. For this reason it stands to reason that religion could play an important role in whether someone is abused, and if they are how their religiosity can help them through the issue.
When talking about religion and sexual abuse perhaps the most common issue is the Catholic Church and priests molesting children. Terry (2008) looked into the issue of priest’s sexual abusing children and what types of methods were used. Using archival data to conduct the study Terry (2008) wanted to find out about the disclosure of abuse by the church, whether or clearly the abusers used any form of grooming behavior on their victims, and the demographics of both victims and abusers. Child sexual abuse in general is often an underreported crime, with females having reports of being abused (Terry, 2008). This is clearly uncommon due to it being more culturally acceptable for a female to admit being abused whereas if a male child reported being abused it opens them up for comments on their sexuality.
In Terry’s (2008) study data came from archives of personnel files at the diocese in the form of clerical surveys that priests filled out. These surveys were only conducted on priests that had prior allegations of abuse, clearly on all priests in general. In addition to surveys being conducted on the priests with allegations of abuse a victim survey was also conducted by the individual who made the allegations against the priest (Terry, 2008). Information that was looked for was what type of abuse, whether there was a grooming process, and where the abuse occurred. What was found through these surveys was that the issue of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church by priests was similar to non-religious sexual abuse of children. The techniques and characteristics were mirrored by non clergy members, which help to show that the issue is clearly something that is unique to the church (Terry, 2008). Most priests wait quite some time before committing their first abusive act, with an average of 11 years (Terry, 2008).
Surprisingly Terry (2008) found that the recidivism rates of clergy members with allegations of abuse were quite low with “55.7% having one victim, 26.9% having two to three victims, 13.9% having four to nine and only 3.5% having ten or more victims” (p. 38). What Terry’s (2008) study shows more than anything else the willingness of some parts of the Catholic Church to look into the issue of sexual abuse and clearly brush it to the side any longer. On the same token the church still does clearly want outside involvement in the disciplinary aspect of the abuse allegations and wants to handle things themselves without help of the criminal justice system.
In order to better understand the abuse and violence that goes on between partners or spouses the effects of religion need to be looked at. Studies by Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999), Berkel, Vandiver and Bahner (2004), Cunradi, Caetano and Schafer (2002), Ellison and Anderson (2001) all go into the issues of religion and its effects on violence and abuse. One commonly looked at variable by these studies is how church attendance itself influences the perpetration of violence. Ellison and Anderson (2001) wanted to test whether religious attendance was inversely related to domestic violence due to prior research showing religious attendance being inversely related to fights and risk of divorce among married couples. What the researchers hoped to learn was how religious attendance affected domestic violence, and whether the frequency was an important factor. These studies as well as others have also looked at the aspect of substance abuse and alcohol use/abuse to see if that has any significant effect upon DV and religion.
A belief held by Ellison and Anderson (2001) was that the social support structures of religious communities would reduce the risk of domestic violence. Drawing upon Social Control Theory by Hirschi Ellison and Anderson (2001) believed that by bonding with the community it would strengthen the ties with those around them, thereby decreasing the risk factors for violence to occur. If the couples had peer’s that would hold them accountable in their eyes as well as remind them of the religious aspect it would decrease DV. Religious communities help by forming bonds with peers and having a large social support network to turn to if things go badly.
However while Ellison and Anderson (2001) believed in the Social Bond aspect of the church decreasing risk, Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) had a different take on the issue. Certain types of religions may have an enhancing effect on the probability that violence is committed against partners. Conservative Protestants that are evangelical (preach out to others) and fundamentalists tend to be more prone to increased risks of males committing DV (Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson, 1999). One of the reasons behind this is believed to be how the family structure within conservative protestant families is defined by the bible. Women are supposed to be subservient to men in the family, the man runs the household and the wife is meant to do as told and clearly to do things on her own. The only real responsibility that she is supposed to maintain is the upbringing of children and keeping the house. As noted by Sorenson, Upchurch, and Shen (1996) “Protestants were 35 percent less likely to report IPV in their marriage in the previous year compared to the unaffiliated” (as cited in Cunradi, Caetano & Schafer, 2002, p. 140). Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) note that some people believe that there are those within the conservative church that believe women to be responsible for their own abuse and victimization due to how they act and behave, and do clearly do enough to dissuade those ideas.
All that has been noted about the religious affiliation and how social bonds may influence how and if DV is committed multiple studies have been done to look at the relationships between these variables. Ellison and Anderson (2001) base their study off of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH-1) which is a “cross sectional probability sample of 13,017 men and women aged 18 and older…including oversamples of African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Mexican-Americans, single-parent families, families with stepchildren, recently married persons, and cohabitating couples” (p. 274). This data set was also used in the study by Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) that looked at similar issues. For Ellison and Andersons (2001) study they looked at the responses about whether fights became physical with their partner within the last year and if they caused serious injury. The NSFH-1 also asked respondents about their religious habits, how often they attended church services. Looking into the social bond aspect of whether religiosity affects DV perpetration Ellison and Anderson (2001) also looked at how much time they spent with social support groups ranging from immediate family to coworkers. For the substance use issue there was just a simple question on whether or clearly the respondent had any issues with substance abuse.
The findings of Ellison and Andersons (2001) study show support for the belief that regular attendance at religious services has a statistically significant finding of an inverse relationship between itself and DV. For males who attended church at least once a week was roughly 60% less likely to perpetrate DV against their spouse or partner than males who did clearly attend church at all. The 60% rate drops slightly if instead of self reports the partners reported rate is used which equals 48.7% (Ellison & Anderson, 2001). Even with the rate at approximately 50%, the connotation is clear that regular religious attendance is a significant factor in whether or clearly abuse will be committed. To ensure these results were accurate Ellison and Anderson (2001) conducted a logistic regression to control for spurious relationships to ensure that all that was affecting the rates was church attendance. Controlling for psychological and substance abuse factors the rates held true and maintained the rates previously mentioned.
To look at whether or clearly conservative Protestant families, men in particular were more abusive than others they Ellison and Anderson (2001) grouped certain religions together when asking questions and then ran analysis to see if there was a relationship between conservative Protestantism and DV. However no significant relationships were detected in their analysis. These results are basically just a reaffirmation of the previous study by Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) that had predicted males that were conservative Protestant and who strictly believe in scripture would be more likely to commit acts of violence against partners or spouses. That additionally looked at attendance and how it relates to DV, and whether being with someone of the same religious background and belief would influence DV. Data came from the NSFH-1.
The results of Ellison, Bartkowski and Andersons (1999) study have similar findings to the other studies that have been done in the field. Surprisingly it shows no statistically significant relationship between being a conservative Protestant and perpetration of DV. What this means is that for the sample those who maintained conservative beliefs including that women should be at home doing housewife things, bringing up the children and subservient to their husbands had no higher rates of victimization than those who did clearly. The researcher’s hypothesis was proven incorrect by this finding and could be why they retested it in a later study. However on the same line of thought Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) found that men are more likely to be abusive to their partners when two conditions were met. First, the men had to attend church services more frequently than their partner or spouse, and second they had to be much more conservative in their beliefs (Ellison, Bartkowski & Anderson, 1999).
During the logistic regression analysis to control for and find definite predictors of domestic violence Ellison Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) found that liberal Protestants were much more likely than conservative to commit acts of DV against spouses or partners. But during another multiple regression analysis they found that when conservative men have partners who are clearly as conservative in their beliefs 2.5 times more likely to be abusive than men whose partners beliefs mirrored their own.
The results of the two previous studies were the foundation for Cunradi, Caetano and Schafers (2002) study on the issue of IPV and religion. Building upon the works of Ellison, Bartkowski and Anderson (1999) and Ellison and Anderson (2001), Cunradi, Caetano and Schafer (2002) looked to improve the reliability of the previous works and look at other factors such as race, denomination, and importance of religion to the respondents. Unlike the previous studies the researchers used a different data set from the National Study of Couples with the National Alcohol Survey. The data was compiled from a household probability sample with 100 sampling units and purposefully oversampling minorities. The total sample size was 4,925 individuals and for the analysis 1,635 couples were used. The final sample used by Cunradi, Caetano and Schafer (2002) consisted of 43% female and 57% male respondents.
Measures used by the NAS for adopted from the Conflict Tacit Scale (CTS) for IPV test. Looking to expand upon previous research the researchers looked at the importance of religion to respondents as well as questions on alcohol dependence rather than the simple yes or no option in previous studies. In that way to more accurately gauge how alcohol may factor into the context of abuse and religion. The findings of Cunradi, Caetano and Schafer (2002) noted that in couples that both persons were religious and the same religion had the lowest rates of IPV at 10.5% while couples without religious affiliation had rates of 18.9%. These differences were noted by the researchers, however neither was found to be statistically significant.
Findings were consistent with prior literature that attending religious services at least once a week for men had a statistically significant lower risk of perpetrating IPV, while the value for females was lower it was clearly statistically significant (Cunradi, Caetano & Schafer, 2002). Unlike the previous research done by Ellison and Anderson (2001) Cunradi, Caetano and Schafer (2002) found that there was no correlation between attending church weekly and importance of religion in relation to increased or decreased risk of IPV. This differs from the other findings, perhaps due to sample used or the other studies both using the same data set and this provides a new view of the subject and helps show the need for more testing. In regards to alcohol use and abuse it was shown that men who reported alcohol problems in their survey had a four times higher risk than those men who did clearly report to abusing alcohol (Cunradi, Caetano & Schafer, 2002). Alcohol seems to be the driving factor for abuse and religion, but alcohol is already known to be a risk factor for perpetrating domestic violence and IPV from multiple past studies. Perhaps the most interesting finding of the study was that when women reported that religious beliefs were very important to them they had an increased risk of IPV.
Like the previous studies, Drumm, Popescu, and Riggs (2009) looked again at religious service attendance and how it affects IPV among conservative Christians. The researchers sampled 1,431 attendee’s in 49 conservative churches across the Northwest USA. The sample ended up being 61% female, 81% Caucasian, 68% married and over half had graduated from college (Drumm, Popescu & Riggs, 2009). What was unusual about this study is that compared to the prior works all finding that church attendance and being conservative in religious beliefs is that the researchers found no link. There was no statistically significant relationship between church attendance or being conservative in beliefs and risk of sexual abuse. Drumm, Popescu and Riggs (2009) also found that there was no significant relationship between ones religious practices and being a victim of physical violence. This study might have been somewhat biased since they were interviewing people at a church about these factors, so by the very nature of the study whether they attended services regularly they were there when sampled. That could skew the data and tests to show no relationships when their might in fact be.
Going hand in hand with women and religious beliefs increasing risk of IPV, one needs to look at how gender role attitudes affect domestic and sexual violence. clearly only looking at whether religious beliefs themselves act in a way that may increase or decrease risk, but when you factor in age of those whose beliefs are in question and how they think is looked at in the study by Berkel, Vandiver and Bahner (2004). Among college age students when asked about violence in relationships 1 in 5 reports having committing some type of violence in a relationship (Berkel, Vandiver & Bahner, 2004). It is clearly surprising then that most the most common predictor of violence against women amongst college students is the beliefs about gender roles for both men and women. Berkel, Vandiver and Bahner (2004) note that gender role beliefs can range from traditional values to more egalitarian values. Traditional values can be defined as responding to someone based upon stereotypes about their sex/gender, and egalitarian as those who do clearly prescribe to roles based upon gender. Among people who hold traditional gender roles there are increased negative attitudes towards women and thereby also a much greater acceptance of rape myths. Many Judeo-Christian religions have written into them the belief of male dominance of everything related to the house and matters of any importance. For this reason Jeffords (1984) noted that those type of belief systems subjugate women to a role under men due to the patriarchal nature of it (as cited in Berkel, Vandiver & Bahner, 2004).
In Berkel, Vandiver and Bahner’s (2004) study they found that most of the respondents from their sample of 316 white men and women were egalitarian in their beliefs on gender roles. Women were more likely than men however to believe in more egalitarian gender roles than the men that were sampled. The most important factor found by the researchers was that those who endorsed the more traditional gender role attitudes had a much higher rate for supporting violence against women. What this means is that most likely the individuals with traditional beliefs were more likely to believe in a patriarchal society where a women should be subservient to her spouse and the use of physical force to maintain that power is acceptable.
So far it has been shown that religious beliefs, and how important one ranks religion to have impacts both positive and negative on domestic and sexual violence. Religion does more than influence how a person thinks and behaves; the institutions setup by the church itself can assist or harm how a victim of either type of violence deals with it after the fact. Faith based programs, which are run by religious organizations receive federal funding which to some is an issue to some within the field. In the context of domestic and sexual violence, the views of the religion may influence or even super cede the efforts that need to done to help the victim. For instance Judeo-Christian religions are written with messages that no matter what the personal cost the marriage should be preserved (Pyles, 2007).
Christianity, namely Protestant seem to hold the strictest beliefs on marital and gender roles than other religions. While it has clearly been empirically shown that strict adherence to the biblical teachings truly influences domestic or sexual violence, if what some keynote speakers are preaching is any indication the problem is real. Dr. James Dobson, who is the leader of the Focus on the Family organization which is a conservative religious group, has said that in a relationship the women is meant to be submissive to her husband’s leadership of the household (Pyles, 2007). clearly only does Dobson believe that women should be submissive, additionally that it is the women’s responsibility to stop her own victimization, recommending talking to a religious leader in the hopes of reconciling with the spouse to preserve the marriage (Pyles, 2007).
Pyles (2007) utilized focus groups to determine the role that religious organizations and faith based programs play in helping victims of abuse. Data was all qualitative and clearly codified to run quantitative analysis on due to small sample size (75 total) the results are just the observations of a convenience sample and no real generalizations can be made. Some women found that church based programs to be helpful clearly because of the services rendered or offered, but because she felt that they trusted the community there (Pyles, 2007). The churches offered some assistance programs to the victims, allowing them to be with others and clearly just think or worry about what was going on with them (Pyles, 2007). This relates back to Ellison and Anderson’s (2001) idea of social bonds. Victims of DV have an attachment to religion and utilize it as a means of social support.
clearly all the subjects in Pyles (2007) study believed that the church was a helpful place; some found it as a barrier to receiving the help needed. One common theme among the focus groups was that the clergy member who was helping with counseling or discussions with victims would at times quote scripture that made it appear they were in the wrong. A victim of DV is clearly looking to be chastised for what happened and made to believe they somehow did something wrong, which is the message some were receiving. The stigma attached with divorce also played a role in victims staying within an abusive marriage especially within the Mormon faith. As shown by one survivor of domestic violence, “Mormons believe that when you get married, you stay married, and if you get divorced it’s frowned upon. It’s one of the biggest sins in the Mormon Church” (Pyles, 2007, p. 286). clearly only victims getting bad messages from either actual scripture or incorrectly interpreted scripture, if one of the biggest sin’s in the church is to divorce that fear can keep someone in an abusive relationship indefinitely. Overall Pyles (2007) finds that churches are most likely contributing to victim’s isolation by either implicitly or inexplicitly telling victims they should remain in abusive relationships.
Wolff, Burleigh, Tripp and Gadomski (2001) looked at the issues surrounding clergy and domestic and IPV. For the study they mailed out information packets to church and particularly the priests in an effort to get more information out, and then mailed surveys for them to return at a later date. Most clergy welcomed the information and most handed out or used the information in the forms of pamphlets, references, poopers, and palm cards with their congregations. Despite using the information, some priests felt ill equipped to deal with the issue and normally just referred them to law enforcement to handle the issues or even counsel the victims. And as shown by Pyles (2007) some priests would tell the victims that God had suffered through trials, and they too must work through the issues with God’s help. Even the clergy who viewed DV as an issue that needed to be dealt with faith still understood and acknowledged that it is an issue that needs addressing. Whether or clearly they are willing to address it and perhaps change their own views of the bible is yet to be seen.
Among the religious denominations, Lutherans are a set that bases itself off the teachings of Martin Luther. Normally known as a stricter, by the book religion the views expressed by the founder on the issue of domestic and sexual violence are rather frightening. “When Katy gets saucy, what she gets is a box on the ear” is the direct quote from Martin Luther about spousal abuse (Pellauer, 2000, p. 12). Now while the religion may have moved away from this open allowance, if clearly belief in domestic violence the fact remains that religions do clearly change much over time, and as one of the stricter by the book religions it is unlikely to have changed much over the last few hundred years. The church is based upon the belief of male dominance and is backed up by numerous biblical passages that seem to believe in that line of thinking. While believing that females need to be submissive and obey their husbands, Luther also with the other hand said that a man needs to be helpful and compassionate to his wife, since she is weaker than the man (Pellauer, 2000).
The view that women are inferior is clearly regulated to just Judeo-Christian religions or the USA in general. In Asia and in the Hindu culture they support a rigid patriarchal system that mirrors the women’s inferiority (Niaz, 2003). Throughout the cultures of Asia, including Japan, India, China, etc women are often looked down upon and treated harshly. In India some have gone so far as to say that women should stop being educated at all and serve their husband or significant other as though they were God (Niaz, 2003). Amongst Arab and Islamic nations marital violence is considered to be justifiable. Douki, Nacef, Belhadj, Bouasker and Ghachem (2003) found that “only 41% of respondents in Palestine “strongly agreed or agreed” that “there is no excuse for a man to beat his wife” ” (p. 166). That means that 59% of the people in Palestine believe that abusing their wives or significant other is acceptable and can be justified. Some of the justifications used are things such as the wife misbehaving, the conditions of the husband’s daily life, and religion (Douki et al, 2003). While 59% seems like a high number in terms of abuse, in Japan one third of all deaths by women can be attributed to murder by their romantic partner (Niaz, 2003).
Throughout all of the studies that have been looked at they all have limitations in some respect. For the majority the studies dealing with religious attendance and effects of IPV focus mainly on heterosexual relationships given the nature of religion. Most same sex couples would be excluded from any sort of tests looking for relationships between the traditional male/female relationships. The data used by studies by Ellison and Anderson (2001) and Ellison, Bratkowski and Anderson (1999) were both the same, which limits the validity of the studies. Just by finding the same results in two different studies, but using the same data does clearly make it more valid. Other samples then found no relationship between the variables found by Ellison’s studies. Location plays a factor in all of the studies in limiting the generalizability of the studies to a geographic area, or to a faction of society such as church attendees. For some studies such as Berkel, Vandiver and Bahner (2004) looked only at attitudes and clearly behaviors. While attitudes have been shown to be relatively accurate predictors of behaviors testing for the behaviors would be a better idea for future research.
The most important thing to look into for future researchers is to examine the role of same sex couples or partners and the role of religion on them. Do the same patterns hold true for same sex relationships as heterosexual ones given that traditional gender roles are clearly clearly defined? Another aspect that merits investigation is why women who rate religion as being very important have higher rates of victimization of IPV than women who are clearly religious. Is that a legitimate relationship or could it be due to an issue such as one religious partner and one clearly which was shown by Cunradi, Caetano and Schafer (2002) to have an effect on victimization. Accurately measuring the clergy and how they handle situations that arise from counseling or confession should be measured. Hand in hand with clergy the programs and faith based programs run by churches should be looked at for multiple issues. Do the programs provide enough help to victims in trouble, how much time is spent offering religious guidance and help, and compared to non faith based programs is there a difference in treatment outcomes.
Religion and sexual and domestic violence are issues clearly just nationally but internationally. Religion goes hand in hand with culture in some countries and the acceptance of domestic violence varies by country, but is higher than it should be everywhere. When it comes to how religion affects domestic and sexual violence, most of the research is agreed that regular attendance lowers the risk of being a victim of IPV or DV. How strictly you adhere to the teachings of your religion has an effect upon abuse as well with there being increased victimization for couples who do clearly share the same beliefs, or level of belief. The church can be a helpful place for victims to go to seek answers, somewhere to get social support from other members and perhaps people who have lived through the same issues that they are. Teachings at some churches could seriously threaten the welfare of the victim if they are told to deal with the trials like Jesus did, or that divorce is a sin and that if they were doing everything right they would clearly be getting abused. Answers such as that are clearly commonplace, but were given enough that studies have picked up on it. Do the benefits of being religious outweigh clearly being religious? With the numbers of abuse as high as they are overall, there seems to be no reason why adding another variable in religion is necessary.
References
Berkel, L. A., Vandiver, B. J., & Bahner, A. D. (2004). Gender role attitudes, religion, and spirituality as predictors of domestic violence attitudes in white college students. Journal of College Student Development, 45:2, 119-133
Cunradi, C. B., Caetano, R., & Schafer, J. (2002). Religious affiliation, denominational homogamy, and intimate partner violence among U.S. couples. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41:1, 139-151
Ellison, C. G., Bartkowski, J. P., & Anderson, K. L. (1999). Are there religious variations in domestic violence? Journal of Family Issues, 20:1, 87-113
Ellison, C. G., & Anderson, K. L. (2001). Religious involvement and domestic violence among U.S. couples. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40:2, 269-286
Douki, S., Nacef, F., Belhadj, A., Bouasker, A., & Ghachem, R. (2003). Violence against women in Arab and Islamic countries. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 6, 165-171
Drumm, R. D., Popescu, M., & Riggs, M. L. (2009). Gender variation in partner abuse: Findings from a conservative Christian denomination. Journal of Women and Social Work, 24:1, 56-68
Niaz, U. (2003). Violence against women in south Asian countries Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 6, 173-184
Pellauer, M. (2002). Lutheran theology facing sexual and domestic violence. Journal of Religion & Abuse, 2:2, 3-48
Pyles, L. (2007). The complexities of the religious response to domestic violence: Implications for faith-based initiatives. Journal of Women and Social Work, 23:3, 281-291
Wolff, D. A., Burleigh, D., Tripp, M., & Gadomski, A. (2001). Training clergy: The role of the faith community in domestic violence prevention. Journal of Religion & Abuse, 2:4, 2001, 47-62
