ABSTRACT

Integrating interdisciplinary and cross-cultural analysis, this volume advances our understanding of sexual violence in intimacy through the development of more nuanced and evidence-based conceptual frameworks.

Sexual violence in intimacy is a global pandemic that causes individual physical and emotional harm as well as wider social suffering. It is also legal and culturally condoned in much of the world. Bringing together international and interdisciplinary research, the book explores marital rape as individual suffering that is best understood in cultural and institutional context. Gendered narratives and large-scale surveys from India, Ghana and Africa Diasporas, Pacific Islands, Denmark, New Zealand, the United States, and beyond illuminate cross-cultural differences and commonalities. Methodological debates concerning etic and emic approaches and de-colonial challenges are addressed. Finally, a range of policy and intervention approaches—including art, state rhetoric, health care, and criminal justice—are explored.

This book provides much needed scholarship to guide policymakers, practitioners, and activists as well as for researchers studying gender-based violence, marriage, and kinship, and the legal and public health concerns of women globally. It will be relevant for upper-level students and scholars in anthropology, sociology, psychology, women’s studies, social work and public and global health.

part Section I|22 pages

Introductions to sexual violence in intimacy

part Section II|76 pages

Gendered narratives of sexual violence in marriage

part Section III|72 pages

Changing the public discourse on sexual violence in intimacy

chapter 7|18 pages

Speaking the previously unspeakable

How codifications of spousal rape into law affects how intimate partner sexual assaults are reported 1

chapter 9|18 pages

The art of the possible

An exploration of artistic interventions to address marital rape in India

part Section IV|42 pages

Implications for policy

chapter 11|27 pages

Prevalence and patterns of sexual violence in marriage in the Pacific Region

Quantitative data in cross-cultural comparisons

chapter 12|13 pages

A global women’s health perspective on marital rape

Sanctions and Sanctuary

part |36 pages

Implications for policy

chapter 13|14 pages

Gender equality achieved?

Policies on intimate partner (sexual) violence in a Danish context