Domestic Violence vs. Honour Killing

57% of young men and 53% of young women in India believe that a man is justified in beating his own wife. – UNICEF Survey (2012)

This may come as a shocking revelation to those unaware of the plight of women in many parts of this country.

However, domestic violence and honor killings exist in India but often flourish under some of the nation’s archaic laws and customs. They form a self-perpetuating vicious circle of violence against women and the subjugation of feminine self-assertion through a culture of fear and aggression.

1. Domestic Violence

Domestic violence may be defined as the consistently violent and hurtful treatment of any woman by her own family, usually male.

IPV, or Intimate Partner Violence narrows this definition down to the abuse perpetrated solely by the woman’s male partner.

In India, both these occurrences exist in abundance, with many women being abused physically and mentally by their husbands and in-laws. Such abuse often leads to the suicide of the victim or even to murder garbed as a suicide.

2. Honour Killing

Honor killing is the murder, usually of a woman or perhaps a couple, by family members. It usually takes place in primitive communities that place much value on the concepts of ‘honor’ and ‘shame.’

In such a society, men are the harbingers of honor and pride – those that earn honor through their deeds. A woman can affect her family’s honor only by destroying it, mainly through perceived sexual misconduct.

The concept of honor-killing is intrinsically tied to the patriarchal opposition to women’s sexual and reproductive self-assertion, which was earlier seen as their male kin’s property.

As such, transgressions on the part of the woman, or even the perception of a transgression, would justify her murder in such societies. Khap Panchayats or kangaroo courts often play a central role in perpetuating this culture of violence, legitimizing it in the people’s eyes as a legal decision.

3. Occurrences

Honor killings in India happen chiefly in the Northern states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan. It is relatively unheard of in the Southern and Western parts of India, including Gujarat and Maharashtra. In contrast, states like West Bengal in the East haven’t witnessed an honor-killing in decades.

Domestic violence in this country is faced the least by women belonging to the Jain and Buddhist communities (3-4%) and the most by those belonging to the Muslim community (11%). Hindu, Christian, and Sikh women fall somewhere in the middle.

The victims’ education and socioeconomic status also make a huge difference, with poor women with minimal education being the greatest sufferers.

4. Causes

Domestic Violence in India is caused by various socio-cultural and economic factors, including dowry, patriarchal views about women’s position, and the changing face of society.

Dowry – Many women are physically and mentally abused in their matrimonial homes with unreasonable demands for money and gifts from their parents.

Relationships – Indian women are even abused by their own parents for dating or wanting to marry men outside specific caste and religious boundaries.

Westernization – Women are often abused and intimidated for purportedly adopting ‘Western’ values such as a desire for jobs, careers, modern dressing styles, etc.

Causes of honor killings are just as numerous and varied if a lot more insidious. Anything from refusing to enter into an arranged marriage to talking to your neighbor’s son can become a justifiable cause for murder in such an environment.

Premarital sex – Their family often kills women for having (or being accused of having) sex before marriage. This is because a woman’s virginity is seen as her male relatives’ possession, first her father and then (to be given as a gift of sorts) to her husband. Any suggestion of being robbed of their rightful property through the woman’s indiscretion might incite the men to violence.

Rape – Women in certain parts of the country and the world have even been killed for being raped, as the rape of a woman is said to bring dishonor upon her family. This is especially true if the woman becomes pregnant as a result of that rape.

Elopement – Couples have often been killed for having eloped to get married against their families’ wishes. Sandeep Kumar and Khusboo, a couple from Hoshiarpur, were hacked to death by Khusboo’s family in one such recent honor killing incident.

5. Use of Minor Boys

The culture of honor killings hurts not only women but men too. In certain cases, minor boys from the families are compelled to kill their sisters and cousins, who are seen to have stepped out of the line’.

This is done to take advantage of the more lenient criminal codes for children and minors. If they refuse, they might also face dire consequences from the family elders.

6. Solution

All this is not to say that the aforementioned problems are unsolvable. In fact, the joint efforts of the Government and human rights activists have helped curb such abuse of women to a great degree.

However, much work remains to be done still. Laws such as the one-sided criminalization of extra-marital sex, which still sees women as the property of their husbands, and the non-existence of marital rape law, tacitly encourage these heinous perpetrators’ crimes by reinforcing their world-view of male superiority.

Keeping this in mind, domestic abuse laws should also be made gender-neutral, as both men and women might be physically and mentally tormented.

The idealization of men as the invincible masters of the race hurts both genders equally, making men into the perpetrators of violence while simultaneously stifling the voices of abused men. It is time we brought gender-equality out of the textbooks and applied those principles to real life.

Last Updated on August 21, 2023 by Steffy Michael