The present study aimed at investigating the relationship between factors that are inherent in the perceiver, inherent in the situation / attitudes toward marital violence, attributions of blame in a violent incident, and judgments on what the victim should do after a violent incident. Attitudes are assessed via three beliefs that the violence can be justified, the husband is not responsible from the violence, and the blame of the violence can be attributed to the wife. Factors inherent in the perceiver (named individual factors), which are thought to be important, were defined as patriarchal and traditional beliefs about marriage and the family, hostile and benevolent sexism, beliefs about normative approval of violence, and gender. Factors inherent in the situation (named situational factors) were existence of (perceived) provocation in a violent incident, severity of the violence, and employment status of the wife and the husband. 327 METU students (176 female, 151 male) had filled out a questionnaire, in which a violent episode between a husband and a wife was described. The scenario contained manipulations on the situational factors. Other constructs were assessed via Likert type scales. Analyses revealed that the sample had held negative views of marital violence, but tend to disagree with immediate precautions like calling the police after a violent episode. Both situational and societal factors had differential effects on the dependent measures, patriarchy and hostile sexism was found to be especially related with the beliefs about wife beating whereas severity and provocation was strongly related with the attributions of blame. Existence of children had decreased the agreement with reactions that would end up the marriage. Suggestions for future research, and limitations of the study are discussed in addition to the findings.

This dissertation examines the discussion that took place during the 19th century surrounding men’s violence against their wives, as well as the contemporary norms and ideas that shaped people’s understanding of, and ability to deal with the problem. The overall objective is to examine how cultural conceptions of gender, class, violence and power (relationships) were created and expressed during the period 1810–1880. I approach this objective through an examination of how men’s violence against their wives was reported and treated as marital conflict, both within local religious arenas (such as church councils and cathedral chapters) and in the Riksdag of the Estates. With a longer diachronic analysis of the discussions in the Riksdag of the Estates con-cerning propositions for changes in the law regarding marital conflict and divorce during the period 1828–1860, the dissertation shows that men’s violence against their wives as well as other forms of male misuse of power were neither made invisible, privatised nor marginalised in the public discussion in Sweden, which previous research has maintained. In contrast to previous research, the dissertation also shows that political attention to wife-beating and the reform work that took place in 19th century Sweden cannot be entirely characterised as a secularised project. The attention politicians directed towards the problem took place in a re-ligious context where the clergy, in practice, through their experience of dealing with wife-beating and other unsatisfactory conditions in marital relations, took the initiative and were instigators in the political process that after the middle of the century brought changes in the law on marital conflict and divorce. The dissertation’s investigations of how marital conflict and violence were dealt with by church councils and cathedral chapters also show how those involved talked about marital conflict based on competing ideas of gender, class, violence and marriage. The dissertation supports previous research that has demonstrated how men’s violence against their wives tended to be made invisible when it was interpreted and dealt with as marital conflict within the religious arenas. However, the results of the dissertation open up for other interpreta-tional perspectives regarding how violence was made invisible in the past, demonstrating that the prevailing understanding of violence that existed through concepts such as conflict and maltreatment may rather have resulted in an exposition of violence, which also included other forms of marital violence and oppression that were not physical. With a starting point in a marital ideology that perceived marriage as being in principle life-long, the intention of the church’s warnings during conflicts was to mediate, even in cases that included men’s vio-lence against their wives. The principal significance was not to make it easier for wives to remove themselves from their husbands’ violence, but to preserve the sanctity of marriage. Despite this, the study of praxis during the period shows that the church councils in particu-lar could assume more flexible and pragmatic attitudes towards the law. In their attempts to find solutions to their congregation’s unsatisfactory state of marital problems, they could even pursue actions that conflicted with legal provisions.

A study of Imāmī Islamic law, gender and soteriology; marriage and divorce as technologies of the self. / This dissertation explores marriage in Muslim Imāmī juristic law as an embodiment of a set of practices that are aimed at cultivating the pious and virtuous self. As a ritual practice for mainstream Imāmī jurists, marriage (and its corollary activities, e.g. sex) was a mode of pietistic self-fashioning and hence a technology of the self. When faced with the strong possibility or inevitability of marital breakdown, and the sexual sins that may have come about as a result of this breakdown, Imāmī jurists opted for creating a space for women’s prerogative to divorce in which the marriage could end whilst still upholding Islam as a program for the circumvention of sin and the production of īmān. Divorce, in this sense, can be thought of as a safety mechanism and extension of marriage’s program for the nurturing of a pietistic psychology in men and women. The textual and gendered discourse of juristic law was therefore aimed at creating a legal program for individuals so as to maintain the normative Muslim’s ontological bond with God through a series of regulations, disciplines, bodily practices and juristically permitted gendered power inversions that promoted soteriological success. This study argues that the primary concern of Imāmī jurists was not to maintain a gendered hierarchy as the current dominant scholarship holds, but to prevent sin, especially zinā, the corruption of the qalb (metaphysical heart) and ultimately avoid damnation in the Hereafter. For Imāmī jurists, marriage was not just a procedural practice of rights and duties, but a mode of self-development and a platform through which an eschatological battle against sexual sin and the Devil took place in. When patriarchy, or more specifically, asymmetrical power relations between (actual/potential) wives and husbands (or guardians) conflicted with the soteriological aims of juristic discourse, the former was inverted. The study concludes that maintaining gender hierarchy was not integral to the cosmology of juristic practice (even in its premodern discourse); it was maintaining the normative believer’s ontological bond with God and saving him/her, as well as the believing community, from damnation. Theological concerns for salvation - and the cultivation of the pious self that made salvation possible – is what animated Imāmī juristic discourse and not patriarchy whether it was obtained from the source-texts (Qur’an, ḥadīth) or social custom (ʿurf). This study undertakes this task by observing six key areas in the Imāmī tradition where notions of salvation and spiritual ontology in marriage/divorce figure the most prominently: juristic preliminaries on marriage and zinā, interfaith marriage, prepubescent marriage, temporary marriage with zānīyahs, nushūz and khulʿ divorce. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Partendo da una concettualizzazione multidimensionale della povertà, il presente lavoro di ricerca studia l’effetto prodotto dalla partecipazione a programmi di microcredito su specifiche dimensioni di genere: l’empowerment delle donne e la violenza domestica. Il primo capitolo analizza la letteratura empirica sul tema in un’ottica critica, gettando le basi per lo sviluppo dei successivi. La seconda parte esamina la relazione fra partecipazione al microcredito e due distinte dimensioni di empowerment utilizzando un modello ad equazioni strutturali (SEM). Accanto alla partecipazione a tali programmi, considero, quale potenziale causa del processo di empowerment femminile, le attitudini maschili in merito al ruolo svolto dalle donne all’interno e al di fuori del contesto familiare. Dai risultati emerge un’associazione positiva fra microcredito e dimensioni di empowerment considerate, ma l’effetto delle attitudini maschili non è significativo. Infine, nell’ultimo capitolo esamino come la partecipazione al microcredito, congiuntamente ad altri fattori socio-demografici, influenza il subire violenza domestica e le attitudini femminili circa la giustificazione della stessa in determinati contesti. Dall’analisi empirica emerge un’associazione positiva tra microcredito e violenza domestica, mentre il partecipare a tali programmi non produce alcun effetto significativo sulle attitudini femminili in merito alla giustificazione della stessa. / The focus of this dissertation is about the influence of participation in microcredit programs on gendered dimensions of poverty. Specifically, I refer to multidimensional poverty in terms of women’s empowerment and domestic violence. The first chapter reviews the empirical literature on microcredit and poverty in a critical perspective and lays the foundations for the two later chapters. The second part explores the relationship between participation in microcredit programs and two distinct dimensions of women’s empowerment using a structural equation model with categorical observed variables. I consider a set of potential causes of the empowerment dimensions including participation in microcredit programs and men’s attitudes towards women’s role in intra-household relationships and in the social context. Interestingly, the former is positively associated with empowerment while the men’s perception about the women’s role do not produce a significant effect on both empowerment dimensions. The last chapter investigates how participation in microcredit programs along with other socio-demographic factors affect the likelihood to experience physical violence and the likelihood of women’s beating justification in different situations. The most interesting result concerns the influence of microcredit on the outcomes variables: it doesn’t affect women’s beliefs about beating justification but it is positively associated with physical violence.

The aim of this work is to analyze quranic feminist interpretation focusing on controversial verse 4:34. We attempt to demonstrate the way islamic feminist exegets deal with the key concepts of this verse mostly notion of male authority (qiwwama and faddala), female obedience (qanitat) and disobedience (nushuz) and wife beating (idribuhunna) through the islamic feminist hermeneutical principles mainly contextual, holistic and through reexamination of terminology. Particular arguments, approaches and interpretative manoeuvres of feminist Qurʼanic exegesis aiming to legitimize gender egalitarian reading of the Qurʼan and challenging centuries of andocentric exegetical tradition will be examined.