Studies on wife abuse in Bangladesh predominantly include the mainstream Bengali population, although there are at least 27 ethnic minority communities including a few ‘female-centered’ matrilineal groups living in the country. This study explored ethnic differences in the attitudinal acceptance of wife abuse among matrilineal ethnic minority Garo , patrilineal ethnic minority Santal , and mainstream patriarchal Bengali communities in rural Bangladesh. Adopting a cross-sectional design, the study included 1,929 women and men randomly selected from 24 Garo , Santal , and Bengali villages. Multivariate Poisson regression was performed to predict the number of contextual events, where the respondents attitudinally endorsed wife abuse. Of the sample, 33.2% were from Garo , 33.2% from Santal , and 33.6% from the Bengali communities. The acceptance of wife abuse was high in the sample; specifically, 34.1% of the respondents accepted physical wife abuse, 67.5% accepted emotional abuse, and 71.6% accepted any abuse (either physical or emotional) at least on one contextual reason provided in a 10-item scale. The mean for accepting any abuse was 3.0 ( SD = 2.8), emotional abuse 2.3 ( SD = 2.2), and physical abuse 0.8 ( SD = 1.4). The study showed that the rates of accepting any abuse and physical abuse were respectively 16% and 56% lower among Garo as well as 14% and 33% lower among Santal than that of the Bengali community. Data also revealed that individual level factors like younger age, higher education, prestigious occupation as well as family level factors such as higher income, female mobility, and female family authority were inversely associated with the acceptance of wife abuse in the sample. It appears that the gender regime of a society has a great influence on the attitudes toward wife abuse. We argue that a comprehensive socio-cultural transformation of the patriarchal societies into a gender equal order is imperative for the prevention of widespread wife abuse in the country.

This study examined how different forms of childhood family victimization are associated with the attitudinal (not actual action) refusal of wife abuse among women and men in rural Bangladesh. It included 1,929 randomly selected married women and men. Of the sample, 31.3% (Men = 49.3%, Women = 13.5%) attitudinally refused overall wife abuse, 38.5% (Men = 53.2%, Women = 23.8%) refused emotional abuse, 67.0% (Men = 82.5%, Women = 51.6%) refused physical abuse, 78.0% (Men = 88.6%, Women = 67.4%) refused abuse on wife’s disobeying family obligations, and 32.3% (Men = 50.3%, Women = 14.6%) refused abuse on challenging male authority. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that the odds ratio (ORs) of the attitudinal refusal of overall wife abuse were 1.75 (p = .041) for the childhood non-victims of emotional abuse and 2.31 (p < .001) for the victims of mild emotional abuse, compared to the victims of severe emotional abuse. On the other hand, the ORs of the overall refusal of abuse were 1.84 (p = .031) for the non-victims of physical abuse and 1.29 (p = .465) for the victims of mild physical abuse, compared to the childhood victims of severe physical abuse. Data further revealed that the childhood non-victimization of physical abuse increased all types of attitudinal refusal of wife abuse, e.g., emotional abuse, physical abuse, abuse on disobeying family obligations, and abuse on challenging male authority. Compared to the childhood experiences of severe emotional abuse, data also indicated that childhood exposure to mild emotional abuse might increase the attitudinal refusal of wife abuse on a few issues, e.g., abuse on disobeying family obligations, abuse on challenging male authority, and physical abuse. It appeared that childhood experiences of family victimization greatly influence different types of attitudinal refusal of wife abuse. We argue that the issue of childhood victimization should be brought to the forefront in the discourse. We recommend that state machinery and social welfare agencies should expend significant efforts to stop child abuse within the family and in other areas of society in rural Bangladesh.