Abstract
This study of 245 poverty-stricken rural families in Ludhiana district of Punjab revealed that a majority of the sampled families were susceptible to a high degree of verbal/and physical marital conflict. This was as expected, given the evidence of the chronic strain and distress that is induced by financial hardship. Overall, men were far more aggressive and violent as compared to women. Alcohol abuse in men was found to be the factor most strongly correlated with all measures of marital discord. Working women were more prone to verbal aggression, which could be due to the strains of both home and workplace, and also, due to the demands of husbands who asked their wives for money to spend on alcohol, and got violent if the wives did not comply. Women were verbally and physically more aggressive to their husbands in nuclear households, where they were less inhibited in giving vent to emotional outbursts. A longer period of marriage significantly reduced husband's verbal and physical aggression, but increased the wife's verbal aggression. In particular education was found to reduce violent behaviour on the part of the husbands.
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