Publisher's Synopsis
This vitally important volume places the problem of wife beating in a broad cultural context in a search for strategies to reform societies, including our own, that are prone to this pernicious form of violence. Based on first hand ethnographic data on more than a dozen societies, including a number in Oceania, this collection explores the social and cultural factors that work either to inhibit or to promote domestic violence against women. The volume also includes a study of abuse among non-human primates and a cross-cultural analysis of the legal aspects of wife beating. By presenting counter-examples from other cultures, contributors challenge Western assumptions about the factors leading to wife beating. Through a close examination of societies where wife beating is infrequent or absent, "To Have and To Hit" identifies the factors - economic, social, political, and cultural-that must be explored and transformed in order to combat this violence and eventually eliminate it.
