Factors associated with perception of marital rape in India

Background and purpose of the study: Most sexual violence occurs in a marriage in India, but marital rape remains unacknowledged by the legal system (Raj & MacDougal, 2014). While 10-14% of every married or cohabitating women have been raped at least once, victims are often blamed more than perpetrators (Monson et al., 2000). Female promiscuity (Idsis, & Edoute, 2017) or level of resistance (Black & McCloskey, 2013) play an important role in perception of marital rape. Methods: Researchers created 9 standardized marital rape scenario vignettes (3x3) to study the impact of ‘perpetrator justification’ (no justification, deprivation, jealousy) and ‘victim resistance’ (passive, verbal, verbal & physical) on Rape-Supportive Attribution (Monson et al., 2000), Sex-Role Stereotypical Victim Blame Attributions (Monson et al., 2000), and Perceived Seriousness of Violence Measure (Yamawaki et al., 2009). Participants responded to an attention test after reading one vignette each. Ongoing online data collection will be completed by 31st March 2021. 578 citizens and residents of India filled out the survey in English. Data set after cleaning includes the following: N = 488, Mean_age = 26.5; SD_age = 9.7, Males = 147, Females, = 336, Other = 5). Findings: Three 3x3 Factorial ANOVAs were not significant. Mean scores suggest that people in India are most likely recognize marital rape when the perpetrator acts out of jealousy and the victim shows silent/passive resistance. Victim blaming is the highest when perpetrator lacks clear justification and victim remains passive. Finally, perceived violence measure is the highest when perpetrator acts out of jealousy and victim resists verbally. Conclusions and implications: Context of rape scenarios play an important role in how the public and perhaps the judicial system views marital rape. Analysis with full dataset will increase power of the study and shed light on the public’s understanding of marital rape in India.