Domestic Violence: A Case Study of Women from Meerut in India

Abstract

Indian society has a clear bias against women and various practices and customs like female feticide and infanticide, child marriage, dowry, bride burning, purdah (veil), high mother mortality rate, high female illiteracy, rape, eve-teasing, molestation, honor killing, witch branding and domestic violence are clear evidence of the same. Domestic violence has always existed in traditional, patriarchal Indian society however for a long time the claim was that it did not exist. Hence for a long time there were no laws to deal with this problem however in 2005 the government enacted a law to protect women from domestic violence. The law came into effect in 2006 but there have been problems in its proper implementation. The paper tries to examine the issue in the context of the attitude of 200 women from Meerut district of the state of Uttar Pradesh in India regarding domestic violence.