There have been three relevant posts on Family Scholars Blog since my semi-critique of Brad Wilcox’s research. (I say “semi-critique” because I haven’t actually read Dr. Wilcox’s book, so I’ve been relying mainly on the press release and press reports). First, a comment by Tom Sylvester, directly responding to my post. Second, a link to an interesting interview with Dr. Wilcox. Finally, a comment from Dr. Wilcox himself (dammit, why I don’t I ever get comments from well-known scholars?).
I’m combining most of my responses to those three posts into a single post. (For those “Alas” readers who aren’t so interested in social science issues, save this post for later reading when you need a sleep-aid.)
I can see Tom’s point, and to a certain extent I agree. Since perfect data is never available, it makes pragmatic sense to tease out the best conclusions we can from the best imperfect data available.
However, in this case, there is much better data on intimate violence available. Before leaping to conclusions, I’d suggest advocating for a new study combining good methodology for measuring intimate violence with questions about religion.
Regarding underreporting, Dr. Wilcox writes that “I’m not convinced that abusive evangelical husbands would have been more manipulative than abusive non-evangelical husbands.” I’m not convinced of it either, but I think the possibility that evangelical wives may be more likely to underreport must be seriously considered. I see several possible reasons evangelicals may be less likely to report abuse:
- Evangelical wives may be more ashamed of having a dysfunctional or imperfect marriage than other wives (given the evangelical emphasis on marriage as a sign of moral worth and failed marriages as moral failures, such a difference would not be surprising). If such a bias exists, it would be consistent with Dr. Wilcox’s finding that evangelical wives report a higher level of satisfaction with their marriage, since evangelical culture would also encourage reporting high satisfaction within marriage.
- Abused evangelical wives may be more closely supervised by their husbands than non-evangelical wives, leaving them less free to answer a survey honestly (this would be consistent with evangelical “husband’s headship of the family” ideology).
- Evangelicals may be more suspicious of academic research than other groups (due to frequent evangelical criticism of academic research as left-wing-biased and anti-family), making them less likely to report sensitive subjects like abuse.
- Evangelical wives who are abused and therefore get divorced may be more likely to leave the evangelical community, due to negative attitidues towards divorcees in the evangelical community; and having left the community, won’t be included in samples of evangelicals.
Of course, I don’t know any of this for certain – but neither does Dr. Wilcox. Especially when using a survey instrument that will lead to underreporting, that evangelicals in particular could have stronger reasons to underreport is an important concern.
Furthermore, even if it is true that evangelical husbands who attend church every week are less likely to hit their wives, that still leaves the question of causation wide open. As I pointed out in my earlier post, Dr. Wilcox’s findings may simply reflect the fact that heavy drinkers are both less likely to attend church regularly (especially evangelical church) and more likely to beat their wives. (Dr. Wilcox’s study did attempt to control for alcohol abuse, but – from what I can tell, which may be mistaken, since I haven’t read his book – did so with an extremely dubious measure. See my previous post for a more detailed discussion of this issue.)
Another possibility, pointed out by Trish Wilson in comments, is that a lower rate of intimate violence may be caused by the wife’s frequent church attendance.
Supporting Trish’s theory, a study several years ago (I don’t have the reference offhand, but I can locate it if anyone needs me to) found that evangelical husbands who attend church every week were less likely to hit their wives than most men – except when their wives didn’t attend weekly. Trish’s interpretation accounts for that finding, but I don’t see how Dr. Wilcox’s interpretation could. (Of course, I haven’t read Dr. Wilcox’s book, so it’s possible he accounts for it fully, or refutes it statistically).
Trish’s theory is also supported by Dr. Wilcox’s finding that “the nominal evangelicals who don’t attend services with any regularity have the highest rates of domestic violence.”
And, of course, it’s also possible that Dr. Wilcox is completely right. Evangelicals who attend church every week are less likely to hit their wives, and the reason is that “active evangelical family men get lots of formal and informal messages about the family responsibilities that go with their ‘headship’; they are also encouraged to focus on the emotional sides of their marriages.”
My point is simply that – as far as I can tell, not having yet read Dr. Wilcox’s book – nothing in Dr. Wilcox’s research enables us to distinguish between these interpretations of his results. It’s possible that Dr. Wilcox’s findings on weekly evangelical church attendance and intimate violence are absolutely correct; but it’s also possible that they simply reflect some other cause, such as alcohol abuse or the protective effect of wives attending church regularly; or perhaps they simply reflect measurement error. Although Dr. Wilcox clearly prefers the “attending church regularly makes men less abusive” interpretation, that interpretation is no better supported by the data than the alternatives I’ve suggested.
(It’s also likely, by the way, that Dr. Wilcox is only measuring the relatively minor instances of intimate violence, in which case his research cannot be generalized into conclusions about the most severe cases. But to get into that would require a great deal more discussion of survey methodology than I think my readers have patience for. See my previous post on “battered husbands” for more discussion of methodology.)
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It’s interesting (and agreeable to me, but that’s predictable!) that Dr. Wilcox gives some credit to feminism for improving the attitude of evangelical men: “I think it’s important to note that I think one of the reasons they do such a good job nowadays is that they take to heart the feminist concern that historically men have not done such a good job paying attention to the needs of their wives and children.”
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In the interview, Dr. Wilcox says:
I think that’s quite likely true. Although I’m not evangelical, I’ve had many conservative evangelical friends (virtually all of whom attended church weekly), and my job at a church site brings me into regular contact with evangelical conservative church-goers. From my experience, the great majority of evangelical men are not patriarchal monsters, any more than the great majority of feminists are man-haters. On the contrary, I’ve met many evangelical men who struck me as exceptionally gentle and thoughtful.
However, I think the best we can hope for between feminists and evangelicals is some mutual respect; hoping for an end to the “culture war” is asking too much. There are many issues (abortion and homosexuality are just the two most obvious ones) in which even mutually respectful feminists and evangelicals will never be able to agree.
Furthermore, when looking at a particular culture (or sub-culture), the question isn’t just “how many men beat their wives.” From what I can tell, the large majority of men aren’t violent monsters, no matter what sub-culture or religious group one looks at. When it comes to looking at communities – at least for this feminist – we need to ask further questions. Questions like, “how easy does this community make it for a woman to say ‘he hit me and therefore I need a divorce’? Are such things considered shameful secrets that the victim should keep to herself? How quick will a community be to reject and scorn a man who does beat his wife? ”
Of course, I’m not saying that Dr. Wilcox’s research should or could have covered these questions; no study can cover everything. But when we discuss the general topic of domestic violence and the attititudes of the evangelical community – or any community – questions like that are on the feminist agenda..
It seems to me you have another counting issue–if evangelical men beat their wives more, then it means there are more women hiding that fact. The numbers are probably really hard to count.
What I’d like to see is a comparison of the rates of parents suddenly snapping and killing their whole family/all their children between evangelical and other households. All of the highly publicized cases over the last few years have, on scrutiny, involved families with heavy church or Promise Keeper ties.
The way I see it the numbers mean nothing, even if true, unless the WHY behind it is understood. Take it as a given (though it isn’t and I’m not saying it is) does it mean that they are less prone to violence or could it simply be that they are together less, or as someone (and now I forget who…so sorry) suggested; that they don’t get into arguements in the first place because the wives meekly comply to requests.
That doesn’t mean that’s the way to live.
One is likely to have less rapes if one’s daughters are kept locked up and never get to see any men including their male relatives, but is that any way to live?
I don’t know how useful this might be, but back in my Fundy days I used to belong to a Christian mothers group called MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers). One persistent theme was that the wives were responsible for the health of the marriage. I’ve seen this attitude in several churchs I had attended. Abuse and divorce were not talked about at MOPS, even though there were quite a few women who needed for those topics to be discussed in the group. Those topics were too “unpleasant,” and the women who ran things wanted to keep things light. The women were told all kinds of things they could and should be doing to make their marriages better, and those things usually involved changes they had to make in themselves. So, if there were “problems,” they were often not recognized as abuse. If her husband had been psychologically or legally abusive towards her, his behavior was frequently not recognized as abusive. She was told to make him a safe haven at home from the stress of work. If her husband gave her a hard time about a messy house, she was asked to keep things tidy, even though an abusive man would just find something else to get on her case about. She was told to ask herself, “do you really need to buy that?” Once she changed the way she handled things, then supposedly he’d “come around.” His behavior was not recognized as abusive, and she was sometimes blamed for his behavior. With that gatekeeping teaching, the wife wouldn’t recognize that she was being abused. I’m sure not all churches held this attitude, but it was one that I saw fairly often. Granted, this was over ten years ago, so hopefully churches have gained a greater understanding of domestic violence since then.
As I said in the “battered men” post, I take issue Dr. Wilcox’s penchant to define domestic violence strictly on physically abusive terms. Domestic violence is much more than being hit. In defining abuse in physical terms, he oversimplifies it.
or as someone (and now I forget who…so sorry) suggested; that they don’t get into arguements in the first place because the wives meekly comply to requests.
While I agree that the reasons need to be looked into (this study, even if true, seems more correlative than causitive), this is very unlikely to be one of the reasons. Most women in abusive relationships — regardless of religious status — are highly likely to be meek and to comply with her husband’s requests. An abuser never needs an excuse to start abusing — he’ll just find one. And it won’t matter how much she complies and how good she is — she’ll never comply enough or be good enough.
Also, another note — while it’s true that alcohol abuse and DV are correlated, that should not to be taken as a causative factor. Alcohol does not, in any way, cause abuse.
Trish’s comments brought to mind someone I knew years back who fit the “psychologically” abused description. I don’t think her husband ever hit her, but he was abusive to her mentally; and she really wasn’t a meek and mild kind of woman. But she did feel she was religiously obligated to go along with what he wanted even when it was discomforting to her to do so.
I guess that is what is so scary. Unfortunately a lot of women seem to be like that; their needs come second. That doesn’t mean that every woman who buys cantalope for dinner instead of the watermelon she would prefer is abused; but there is a fine line between wanting to please a spouse beacuse this brings one pleasure and feeling that one does it because one is obligated to do it, in disregard to one’s own wants and needs.
One minor comment: I was a born-again for some time in my teens and early twenties, and there’s some validity to what Amp suggests at the end of his post. Evangelical christian men are given both pressure and support to be good family men. This goes hand in hand with an ultra conservative ideology that’s based on the idea that women are inferior and man is the head of the household, which is bad. However, in practice evangelical men usually have a support system of family, bible study members and pastors that they can ask to help them when they’re under pressure, and usually this help involves some form of emotional counselling, self-examination & prayer (the old ‘look into your heart, what would the Lord want’ stuff).
And men can get this support without feeling threatened or lessened. I think this kind of help — how to be a mensch without being a thug — is needed for most guys at risk of abusing others. 12-step programs are based on a similar kind of model, and they work to change people’s behavior.
Speaking as someone who is no longer a born-again christian — I will point out that it’s really hard to kick someone when you’re on your knees, either physically or metaphorically.
Unless things have changed radically in 20 years, fundies still are emotional “stuffers”–emotional honesty is unacceptible in many evangelical groups. emotional manipulaiton is more what happens. I know, I was there for a few years during college–the scars are mostly healed now, but I still have them.