What it is like getting subjected to constant domestic violence and still getting a case under the Domestic Violence (prohibition) Act? This is what happens with men worldwide as under the UN influence worldwide, domestic violence or intimate partner violence is considered as gender-biased and only women are considered as the victims and the men as perpetrators. As a result of this men are denied justice even after being subjected to various forms of domestic violence.

Even though there were already many studies earlier that showed at least an equal percentage of women engage in intimate partner violence worldwide, those studies were not considered in forming laws of any country including India. October was the month of Domestic Violence Awareness Month and in this month TMF has been continuously publishing studies to show various forms of domestic violence against men.

In this article, we are going to share another study result that was recently conducted online among Indian men and about 300 men from different parts of India took part in this one-week survey. This survey tried to capture different forms of domestic violence men need to suffer in the hands of their wives, yet these are not recognized as a crime under Indian Statute. This survey revealed startling facts about domestic violence in India and today we will discuss the findings in detail.

Physical Abuse

The main part of domestic violence is physical violence and a man is known and widely accepted as the more violent partner. Since women are in general weaker in strength compared to men, it is considered that even if a woman commits physical violence, that is less harmful to a man and hence need not be considered as a crime. However, we may understand that this is not true for all couples and no one can be given the benefit because one is weaker.

In our survey, we found that about 58% of husbands were subjected to physical violence in the hands of their wives and about 94% have suffered different forms of intimidation from the wife. Since laws are in their favour, Indian women very often use these intimidation techniques to keep the husband’s family on their toes. These are mainly threats of NGOs, police, local clubs, filing false complaints etc.

We have also measured the frequency of such harassment that men face. It was found that about 35% of men in India are silently tolerating such abuse at least once a week unless they part ways. 19% of men suffer physical violence at least once every month.

Sexual Violence

When it comes to sexual matters, feminists have propagated a myth that only women can be sexually violated. They claim that it is the man who always demands more sex or performs forced or unnatural sex.

In our study to measure the scale and extent to which an Indian husband is subjected to different forms of sexual abuse, we found that about 52% wives demanded more sex from their husbands, and 54% have abused their husband for not having enough sex. In 59% of cases, women were found to be more demanding about sex and 29% of them have raped their husband.

In terms of frequency of sexual abuse, about 37% of men suffer sexual violence from their wife at least once every week, about 16% had to withstand such abuse at least once every month. More often it was found that the woman becomes more abusive and more violent if she desires more sex. It was also found that 83% of women refused sex to their husband at one time or other.

Now feminists may promote all of these as a right of the woman, either to demand more sex or to refrain from it, but the same is not true for a man. All these are considered as domestic violence when a woman complains about any of these.

Verbal and Emotional Abuse

It was found in the survey that women resort to verbal or emotional abuse most often. Mainly when the husband refuses to have more sex, he invariably gets abused as ‘Impotent’. Women also use different other threats of misusing law or legal entities against the husband to intimidate him. It was found that about 51% women abused their husband as impotent, 84% repeatedly threatened them in a different manner, 75% gave suicide threats and about 72% went missing at least once without informing the husband.

Now you need to understand that all of the above is considered domestic violence when the husband does that. But such an overwhelming majority of abuse against Indian men is not even considered as a crime.

In terms of frequency of occurrence of any kind of verbal or emotional abuse, it was found that at least 78% of women engaged in such behaviour at least once every week. 15% used this once every month. From the overall analysis of the data, it was found that verbal and emotional abuse was the most prominent and most frequently used abuse against husbands.

Economic Abuse

Even though women, in general, do not engage in the workplace that often and per the Indian labour statistics it was found that women’s participation in the labour force has declined over the last three decades, it was found that women didn’t contribute to the household even when they earned money. 73% of them ended up in overspending their husband’s money in shopping for themselves, and 78% pressurized their husband to buy expensive gifts (jewellery, car, house etc.) for them.

The economic abuse not only restricted to husbands alone, in 88% cases it was found that the wives forced their husbands to separate ways from their dependent parents. Also, about 53% of husbands were prohibited from using their own household assets.

In terms of frequency of abuse, it was found that in 60% cases the husband had to suffer one form of economic abuse or the other at least once every week. 17% of husbands suffered such abuse at least once a month. Only 8% of men responded to not being subjected to such abuse.

Overall Tendency

In overall trend analysis, it was found that the verbal and emotional abuse was the most predominant abuse that Indian men suffer from. About 78% of men reported this as the major abuse in their conjugal life. About 9% reported economic abuse was the most prominent in their lives thus making it the second most frequent abuse of men. Physical abuse was prominent for 7.5% husbands and about 5.78% of husbands reported sexual abuse as the most prominent one.

Conclusion

It is important to understand that one woman might have used more than one form of abuse against a husband as none of these when committed by a woman is considered as a crime and ALL of these are crimes when a woman suffers from any. This survey clearly shows that the time has come that Domestic Violence is considered as a crime irrespective of gender and also the sanity of the law is checked. If this is not done, men worldwide will continue to suffer silently and every man will need to fight for their right.

***

Home