Violent men are the biggest source of domestic violence, but why do men become violent with the women they supposedly love? The answer lies with patriarchal social and religious expectations. Most observers recognize that there is a correlation between patriarchal attitudes and domestic violence, but the precise nature of this relationship isn't always understood.

In Healing Violent Men: A Model for Christian Communities, David J. Livingston writes:

[D]iscouraging is the absence of conversation and action regarding the source of abuse: violent men. The Christian community must take on the responsibility of healing the broken and calling the perpetrators to conversion. [...] Pastors, therapists, and social workers meet men every day who act as if women are inferior and should function as servants and obedient wives, lovers, and mothers.

So how has Christianity served to abet the abuse of women? An important factor can be found in how churches have traditionally regarded the institution of marriage itself. The ideal of marriage as something which should continue no matter what happens has worked to the detriment of women. Wives are told by their religious leaders that they must endure whatever their husband does. Their vows were, after all, “for better or for worse.”

Livingston cites a 1982 Church Response Survey in which clergy were asked how they would respond in various scenarios of domestic violence. One-third responded that the abuse would have to be very severe for them to recommend the couple separate and twenty-six percent that “a wife should submit to her husband and trust that God would honor her action by either stopping the abuse or giving her the strength to endure it.”

It is clear that these men are becoming less and less common, but among them is a percentage whose expectations are not met. These men resort to violence in order to force their partners to conform to their vision of the way the world should be. Men who feel comfortable only when they are in control of the world around them do not function well within relationships, because relationships involve another person who has goals, dreams, and ideas of her or his own.

Who teaches these men that they need to be in control of the world around them? Who tells them that women must submit to their expectations? A lot of this is transmitted through media, culture, and family, but we cannot ignore the fact that significant messages along these lines are also transmitted through religion and churches.

The dynamics of intimate violence present ... center around the issues of abuse, control, and power. The desire to have power over, or control of, his partner is connected to attachment issues in that the man cannot accept the possibility of being abandoned, and so needs to control his partner. The need for power is also related to patriarchal society, which "demands" from men a sense of power.

The Christian right is a major player in the cultural push to tell men that they must have a personal sense of power over what happens around them. The Christian Right tells men that they must be in charge of their family, of their church, and of society in general. The Christian Right is also closely connected with conservative political forces which promote "masculine" politics (and war) over "feminine" submission, defeatism, and compromise.

 

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