domestic violence

Door opened on domestic violence

A new study looks into Pacific attitudes and customs which hurt women and hold them back

By Robin Bromby

Anthropologists have

rarely tackled the subject of domestic violence, so a new study just published by the Hawaii-based Institute for Polynesian Studies breaks new ground with a penetrating account of just what goes on behind closed doors in Pacific societies.

The study ranges far beyond Poly nesia, and, in fact, focuses more on Melanesian and Micronesian practices.

But the disturbing theme which runs through the studies is that many Pacific societies consider a certain level of family violence to be normal and acceptable.

Yet some are relatively free of such problems, as is the case between the Wapc people of Papua New' Guinea.

Where it does occur, its origins and reasons vary widely, from the suppression of women in Indian-Fijian households to the encouragement of violence as a means of social control among some parts of the Marshall Islands.

In Kiribati, nose-biting is a form of

sexual mutilation practised traditionally

upon Tungaru women. A paper by David E. Lewis of the University of California, San Francisco, explains that a woman in the Gilbert Islands, who, continually provoking her husband by what w'as considered immodest behav iour, would be subject to an escalating series of punishments with the full backing of custom. Beatings would be the first stage, but the final recourse for the husband would be to take his wife into the bush and bite off her nose.

But this destruction of attractiveness -■ regarded as the ultimate sanction was probably inflicted only rarely, ac cording to Lew'is. It is likely the threat of such action was sufficient to ensure that most Tungaru women conformed.

Actual violence is much more frequent in Indian-Fijian society. Shireen Lateef, from the University of Melbourne, re ports that violence is accepted by that

community as part of being female; (he control of women by the use of the danda (stick) is seldom seriously questioned by male or female Indian-Fijians.

The Indian population of Fiji tend to reflect the values of the male-dominated North Indian Hindu family pattern, with

the ideology of purdan remaining deeply

imbedded. Women must know (heir place in Indian households. If they go out to work as increasing numbers do it must be into approved types of employment, such as being clerks or typists.

Violence pervades the lives of the young women, said Lateef. Generally, the unmarried women were beaten for jeopardising the honour of the family by not sticking to the guidelines of purdan , while married women were hit for not

demonstrating the required deference

towards husbands and for failing to adequately perform their wifely duties.

The violence takes the form of a range of acts, from a slap, then pushing, kicking, punching, belting or hitting with a stick.

The most common and consistently used form is slapping the face. Often women are pushed against walls, their heads slammed against the w'all or objects are thrown at them.

Lateef reports case studies of teenage girls being beaten for talking to boys, or married women being hit or questioning their husbands even in one case, where the couple had a superficially

Western-style modern relationship w4iere

the wife mixed freely, drank and smoked.

Pauline McKenzie Aucoin, of the University of Toronto, studied domestic life among the ethnic Fijians in Ba Province. Physical punishment is a daily part of children’s lives there, especially for children over five years of age when their parents expect the offspring to perform chores around the house.

Boys tend to be punished for what is considered unmasculine behaviour and as a means off reinforcing the male’s social role in adulthood, whereas girls get into trouble more often for neglecting

their household work.

As they get older, the punishment is concentrated on the teenage girls or young married women often with the brother taking the role as dispenser. Yet Aucoin found that marital violence was

generally disapproved of in Fijian so

ciety, and the women felt they had a right to argue without being hit by their husbands.

Men also generally disapprove of their fellow male villagers who resort to violence in the home. Some wives, if badly beaten, will return to their kin and then her brothers will threaten to beat up the man who had injured their sister.

Reconciliation at this stage will re quire the husband to atone for actions, and offer gifts to the wife’s family. The use of violence in marital disputes by husband against wife is seen as a

contemptible act in Fijian society as

observed by Aucoin, and one that can cause a serious breach between individ uals and the clans of which they are part.

In Palau, people maintain that dom estic violence was practically unknown before the territory came under Japanese rule between 1914 and 1944. But its incidence has increased markedly in the last few generations, with alcohol playing a key role.

Karen L Nero of the University of California, Irvine, found that cases disproportionately involve young, edu cated elite couples. A..d wife beating is on the increase despite the fact that historically Palauan women have had a strong voice in economic and political decisionmaking. Most contemporary cases of marital violence involve success ful, well-educated young men and women who hold good jobs in govern ment or the private sector. The one common factor is drunkenness.

Nero found evidence that the Japanese use of corporal punishment introduced a new level of violence into Palauan life, and that it was only during the Japanese administration that Palau men began drinking on a serious level.

Giving credence to this is a study undertaken in Palau by Germans in the 1880 s which recorded that there were penalties imposed on men who hurt their wives. Conversely, beer ran out on Palau and Yap in September last year and for a week the hospitals were nearly empty.

She also attributes part of the problem to the general level of stress on Palau: the

splitting of families on political questions

during the several plebiscites over the territory’s relationship with the United States, and the internal political violence and assassinations. On top of that, the educated and employed young Palauans

face great pressure to support their extended families even though living in a nuclear household themselves and when they are trying to save for a house or a child’s education.

On the Ujelang and Enewetak, the westernmost of the Marshall Islands, Laurence Marshall Carucci of Montana State University found that violence was deeply anchored in local patterns of child rearing and socialisation.

Children are teased into violence by male adults, taught to throw paving stones and as the boys grow older they are encouraged to take up wrestling, fighting with fists and clubs and throwing large rocks. Women believe in the acquisition of magical skills which they feel can help enact revenge on others.

Carucci described the Marshallese ideal of the male as one who travels around winning physical battles with males, and sexual battles with females.

Marriage is often seen as a form of entrapment of the warrior, a feeling which can spill over into violence when alcohol is added to the question.

But there is the other side to the story.

Jill Nash from the State University College in Buffalo, New York state, was able to study the Nagovisi people on the island of Bougainville, in the North Solomons Province of Papua New Guinea. She found that physical violence

happened only infrequently between

spouses it was rare, in fact. She found that arguing husbands and wives were more likely to take out their anger by means of destroying property.

The study showed that the Nagovisi differed from many other societies in that physical violence between married people was neither common nor tacitly condoned. They also have provision for redress when it does occur, and the community has a system of fines; a partner may seek financial compensation from his or her spouse.

Nash said the Nagovisi seemed to take pride in their ability to control the expression of emotion. People were concerned about having their outbursts mocked as a form of gossipy entertain ment.

William E. Mitchell, of the University of Vermont, found tht the Wape people of Papua New Guinea’s West Sepik Province experienced little domestic viol ence. Wape men do not beat their wives, which is especially fascinating as wife beating is such an accepted custom in most parts of Papua New Guinea.

As with the Nagovisi, the Wape place great importance on keeping emotions under control, and Mitchell reports that he himself was reproved for telling children in a loud voice to get off the verandah of the house in which he was staying. Aggressive acts are ignored: an enraged toddler is just left to scream on

the ground, or the Wape will just turn and walk away whei/told off by an outsider. Y A larcrp mn of • i

C °o X!

ancestoral spirits can visit illness and bad luck on family enemies and arguments are often followed by conciliatory rituals which include an appeal to the spirits not to punish the other party. Unlike many

other Papua New (Linea peopL the

Wape family life involves the man in child care. There is also a near absence of alcohol among these people.

Bu ‘ while ‘hese examples of non violence exist, wife beating continues to be prevalent in the South Pacific the

study concludes,

T X Nt

the ZmderedXtween

1979 and 1982 were killed by their husbands. The rate of wife beating varies as high as 100 per cent in Western Highlands Province, but less than half that rate in West New Britain.

. The reason why anthropologists have

ignored domestic violence is their general view that the people of the Pacific hold different values from those of the Eur opean or North American, and there is a reluctance to sit in judgement (especi ally since domestic violence is so common in their own societies). Now, at least, the subject is out in the open and can at least be discussed. □