Male aggression is largely attributed to spousal abuse Essay -- Marria

Missing Tables Male aggression is largely attributed to spousal abuse "The truth is somewhere outside the circle." -ancient proverb The pervasiveness of spousal abuse is traceable from culture to culture. Every culture has a its unique way of dealing with spousal abuse. The fact that spousal abuse is rampant among certain societies and is completely oblivious to others indicates that spousal abuse is politically, socially, and culturally determined. However, common sense validity would imply that male-dominance is the cause of spousal abuse. This is not always true. For instance, in some cultures there is not a clear-cut gender differentiation between males and females. For those cultures, the binary gender line that exists in the Western culture does not apply to them. Incidentally, this raises the question of whether or not there is a "third gender." To delve into the topic of male dominance as attributed to spousal abuse in its comprehensiveness is beyond the scope of this paper; rather, our purpose here is to show how male-dominance affects spousal abuse by taking the cross-cultural approach. Perhaps it is worthwhile to note that the husband-wife relationship is not a linear relationship for all societies. There are some societies where females were forced to take on the role of the husband. Because the husbands were usually away from their homes, the wives became 'heads of the household.' Furthermore, the wives were allowed to beat their husbands at will if they were found of wrongdoing. It absolutely violates and contradicts the husband and wife relationship, which permeates the Western culture. Interestingly, this reversal of gender role between husband and wife proves that the husband-wife r... ...ery) Pearson Correlation 1.000 .032 Sig. (2-tailed) . .801 N 142 63 V754 Wife-Beating Pearson Correlation .032 1.000 Sig. (2-tailed) .801 . N 63 70 Summary: In conclusion, it can be safely established that male aggression plays a major role in motivating spousal abuse. As indicated, in every instance where wife-beating occurs there is a high divorce rate. Furthermore, the significance of these findings show that aggressive behavior is not a biological fact. Briefly, it is not something innate or inborn. The fact that aggression is not grounded in biology suggests that it is culturally and socially constructed. In every society, men and women learn to behave through a process of enculturation. As seen through a case with the Nuer society, women often times take on the role of the husbands. For the westerners, this sometimes comes as a shock