Critical Essay: Cultural Factors Contributing to Domestic Violence

This critical essay examines the multifaceted issue of domestic violence, focusing on the argument that varying cultural norms are significant causes and promoters. It explores psychosocial theories like the culture of violence, evolutionary, and feminist theories to support this claim, while also addressing counterarguments from marital power, ecological, and bio-psychosocial perspectives. The essay acknowledges limitations in each theory and highlights the negative impacts of domestic violence, such as physical injuries, stress, and academic problems. Ultimately, it emphasizes that while different theories offer varying explanations, they all underscore the detrimental effects of domestic violence and the importance of its prevention, recognizing that these theories were developed based on research from different regions and perspectives, making them all valid within their specific contexts. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments to aid students in their studies.

Running head: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
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Domestic Violence
Name
Institution Affiliation

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Abstract
Domestic violence is a major social problem which affects many families in the world today.
Domestic violence has left many families in great trouble today, and that’s why it’s important to
discuss it for us to understand it better. This critical essay will discuss domestic violence where it
will mainly concentrate on the main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies.
Many scholars argue that the varying cultures and norms of our societies are the main causes of
domestic violence in our societies, but we have some scholars with different perspectives. In this
essay, it will be argued that “some of our varying cultures are the main causes and promoters of
domestic violence in our societies.” The arguments from different theories will be gathered to
help in supporting or criticizing this argument.

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Domestic Violence
In social psychology, domestic violence is an aggressive or violent behavior which
occurs in a home setting and mainly involves married partners (Berns, 2017). Domestic violence
is a common problem in our societies where many married partners have found themselves
quarreling and raising different forms of violence due to different issues which bring some
serious differences in their lives (Dutton, 2011). In this critical essay, we shall discuss domestic
violence in details where we shall concentrate on some of the main theories which have been
formulated to explain different aspects of domestic violence. The critical essay will be split into
two main parts where the first part will state the main argument of the essay and come up with
some evidence to support the main argument, while the second part will be the balanced
argument part where some major points will be raised to criticize the main argument or raise
some alternative views about the main argument of the critical essay. The main argument of our
critical essay is that ‘some of our varying cultures are the main causes and promoters of domestic
violence in our societies.’ The scope of our work (the critical essay) will cover different
arguments and theories which have been given by different scholars in their attempt to explain
the main causes of domestic violence in our society.
The culture of violence theory is one of the main psychosocial theories which support the
argument that our varying cultures are the main causes of domestic violence in our societies.
According to this theory, we have some societies which have some subcultures which have come
with some norms which permit the use of domestic violence in our homes. This theory goes
ahead to explain that we have some societies with some norms which allow women to be beaten
by their husbands when they go wrong as a way of correcting them so that they won’t repeat the

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mistakes (Stewart and Simons, 2010, pp.569-605). These cultures and norms are the main causes
and promoters of domestic violence as in most of the times the women will end up fighting back
when hit by their husbands and this ends up escalating the cases of fights and violence between
the married partners. This theory agrees with our main argument that some of our varying
cultures are the main causes and promoters of domestic cultures in our societies since without
such cultures and norms, the cases of domestic violence will be very few or absent in such
societies. A key limitation of this research or theory is that it does not consider the societies
which experience serious cases of domestic violence yet their cultures and norms strictly
condemn the cases of domestic violence yet there are many such societies (Nisbett, 2018).
Another major psychosocial theory which supports the argument that our varying cultures
are the main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies is the evolutionary
theory. The evolutionary theory argues that the societies have changed from simple societies to
highly complex societies which has resulted from the drastic changes undergone by our cultures,
and this has made the families to become smaller and nuclear in their forms, and their relations
have turned to be more structured thus becoming more ambiguous. These changes in the family
structures and settings have ended up altering the parenting styles where many parents have
adopted different parenting styles such as using corporal punishments against their kids, and all
these unexpected changes have ended up increasing the cases of domestic violence in the
societies in different ways (Glenn, Kurzban, and Raine, 2011, pp.371-380). According to the
evolution theory, the changes of the cultures of different societies have played a great role in
changing the parenting styles, and other family issues and these changes have in one way or
another ended up promoting the cases of domestic violence in our societies. A key limitation of
this research is that it doesn’t give convincing reasons as to why the changes in the family

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structures and parenting styles end up causing and promoting cases of domestic violence in our
societies.
Another psychosocial theory which supports the argument that our varying cultures are
the main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies is the feminist theory. The
feminist theory argues that we have some cultures and some societies which generally take
women to be inferior when compared to men and see no problem when females are abused
violently by their male counterparts (Nye, 2013). According to these societies, men are the kings
of the families are supposed to do whatever they want in their homes and are allowed even to use
force or violence against their wives to have their demands met. The cultures in these societies
have promoted violence in our societies greatly since they support men who raise violence in
their homes, and in most cases, the wives of these men have ended up responding violently
against these men. A key limitation of this research or theory is that it doesn’t consider some of
the societies where both men and women are treated equally and yet we have many cases of
domestic violence in these societies (Lange, Mitchell, and Bhana, 2012, pp.499-514).
The psychosocial theories discussed above support our main argument that some of our
varying cultures are the main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies.
However, we have some scholars who have come up with different views and different theories
on the causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies. In this section, we shall
consider the alternative views and the theories given by these scholars, and this will serve as a
balanced argument for our critical essay.
The marital power theory is one of the psychosocial theories which argue that the cultures
and the norms of our societies are not the main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our

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societies, but instead, the marital powers possessed by men are the main causes and promoters.
According to this psychosocial theory, the powers possessed by men, where the powers may be
not only the physical strength but also the resources possessed by men are the main causes and
promoters of domestic violence (Telalagic, 2012). Powerful men always tend to show off their
powers (physical strength and resources) to their women and always feel to be superior to
women and may cause unnecessary violence in their homes when they feel their wives don’t
recognize and respect their powers. The critique of this research or theory is that it doesn’t
consider the powerful men who do not show any form of violence in their homes, and we have
many such men in different societies which mean this theory doesn’t apply to all the societies
(Lawson, 2012, pp.572-590).
Another psychosocial theory which gives a different view on the main causes and
promoters of domestic violence is the ecological theory. According to the ecological theory, the
main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies are some of the ecological
factors or perspectives which affect different families. Some of the major ecological perspectives
which may cause or promote domestic violence include a poor or a stressing social environment,
a stressing family history, some bad social networks, among many other ecological perspectives
or factors (Ali and Naylor, 2013, pp.611-619). A major critique of this research is that it
generalizes all the families and doesn’t consider the peaceful families who have encountered
many stressing ecological environments and have managed to withstand them all of them
without having any problems of domestic violence.
Another main psychosocial theory which has alternative views on the main causes and
promoters of domestic violence in our societies is the bio-psychosocial perspective theory

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(Lawson and King, 2012, pp.517-534). According to this theory, the varying cultures and norms
of different societies are not the main causes and promoters of domestic violence, but the main
causes and promoters are the bio-psychosocial perspectives encountered by these families. Some
of the major bio-psychosocial perspectives which greatly promotes domestic violence are the
levels of stress experienced by the family, the quality of relationship which exist among the
family members, the amount of income earned by the family members which in turn determines
their quality of life, some antisocial tendencies possessed by some of the family members,
among many other bio-psychosocial perspectives (Afolabi, 2014, pp.107-118). This theory
argues that the kind of life a family lives highly determines if this family will keep on
experiencing rampant cases of domestic violence. The families who live a poor and stressed kind
of lifestyle tend to have more cases of domestic violence as compared to the families with better
lifestyles and these increases cases of domestic violence are mainly caused by the bio-
psychosocial perspectives or factors discussed above (Hague, Thiara, and Turner, 2011, pp.550-
561). A major critique of this research is that we have many families who live stressed and poor
lives and don’t experience cases of domestic violence, while there are many families who have
better and prestigious lifestyles yet experience rampant cases of domestic violence, which means
this research is not very accurate.
From the discussion above, it’s clear that different scholars have come with different
theories to try and explain the main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies.
Although these scholars have different views on the main causes and promoters in our societies,
they all agree that domestic violence is bad and is associated with many negative impacts on the
affected families. Some of the major negative impacts of domestic violence on the affected
families include causing physical injuries and pain which result from domestic fights, leaving the

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families hopeless in life, increasing the levels of stress to the affected families especially children
and this increases their chances of suffering from depression, causing serious academic problems
to the affected children who study as they can’t concentrate with their studies well when facing
domestic problens in their homes, among many other negative impacts (Bancroft, Silverman, and
Ritchie, 2011).
The critical essay teaches us much about domestic violence, especially its causes and
promoters in our societies. The essay covers different theories which have been formulated by
different scholars to explain the main causes and promoters of domestic violence in our societies,
which is a major problem facing many societies in the world today. The major reason why we
have varying reasons given by different theories is that these theories were formulated by
different scholars who researched different regions in the world and there are many causes of
domestic violence which vary in different regions. Therefore, all the theories are correct as they
were formulated by the researchers after doing detailed research in different regions and
considering different perspectives. One last thing we should note that is domestic violence is bad
and is associated with many negative impacts to the affected families, and so all the parents
should try as much as possible to avoid it in their homes.

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References
Afolabi, O. E. (2014). Domestic violence, risky family environment, and children: A bio-
psychology perspective. International Journal of Psychology and Counselling, 6(8), 107-
118.
Ali, P. A., & Naylor, P. B. (2013). Intimate partner violence: A narrative review of the feminist,
social and ecological explanations for its causation. Aggression and Violent
Behavior, 18(6), 611-619.
Bancroft, L., Silverman, J. G., & Ritchie, D. (2011). The batterer as parent: Addressing the
impact of domestic violence on family dynamics. California: Sage Publications.
Berns, N. S. (2017). Framing the victim: Domestic violence, media, and social problems.
London: Routledge.
Dutton, D. G. (2011). Rethinking domestic violence. Columbia: UBC Press.
Glenn, A. L., Kurzban, R., & Raine, A. (2011). Evolutionary theory and
psychopathy. Aggression and violent behavior, 16(5), 371-380.
Hague, G., Thiara, R. K., & Turner, A. (2011, November). Bride-price and its links to domestic
violence and poverty in Uganda: A participatory action research study. In Women's
studies international forum (Vol. 34, No. 6, pp. 550-561). Pergamon.
Lange, N., Mitchell, C., & Bhana, D. (2012). Voices of women teachers about gender
inequalities and gender-based violence in rural South Africa. Gender and
Education, 24(5), 499-514.

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Lawson, J. (2012). Sociological theories of intimate partner violence. Journal of Human
Behavior in the Social Environment, 22(5), 572-590.
Lawson, J., & King, B. (2012). Theories of violence: A review of textbooks on human behavior
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517-534.
Nisbett, R. E. (2018). The culture of honor: The psychology of violence in the South. London:
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Stewart, E. A., & Simons, R. L. (2010). Race, code of the street, and violent delinquency: A
multilevel investigation of neighborhood street culture and individual norms of
violence. Criminology, 48(2), 569-605.
Telalagic, S. (2012). Domestic production as a source of marital power: theory and evidence
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