Domestic Violence and Intra-family Dynamics: Analysis of India’s Supreme Court Rulings

• In Event: 591 - Regular Session. Sex and Violence

Abstract

Domestic violence is a manifestation of unequal gender power relations within the family. Departing from the dominant focus on intimate partner violence, we examine domestic violence in India as an intra-family dynamic. Consideration of the power exerted by some women within the family, and particularly joint families, is central to understanding gender relations within institutions but how these are legitimized by the courts in the ways they interpret the law can be evident from our analysis of the rulings on cases. Using archival data from 164 Supreme Court case decisions on domestic violence in India for the period 1995-2011, we examine both the patterns of conviction and the complexities of gender relations within the family by systematically coding the Court’s rulings. India’s Supreme Court has convicted women as perpetrators of the violence with the mother-in-law being implicated in 61% of the cases in contrast to the husband being implicated in 90% of the cases. We also discuss two domain themes from our qualitative analysis of the data: the gendered nature of familial relations beyond the intimate partner relationship and the pervasiveness of such gendered relationships from the natal home to the marital family making victims of domestic violence isolated and ‘homeless’.

Authors

• Preethi Krishnan, Purdue University

• Mangala Subramaniam, Purdue University