It was only during the decade of the 1970's that the prevalence and the seriousness of family violence in the American context was recognized as a social problem. The problem, however, has existed ever since the emergence of the institution of the family. The family should be regarded as one of the most violent social groups, and the home as one of the most violent social settings. Three significant historical trends in the 1960's contributed to the increase of public attention given to the problem of family violence. First, the 1960's was a decade of public or visible violence. Second, there was growing awareness of the women's liberation movement as well as the children's rights movement. Third, some American social scientists began to use a “conflict model” of human behavior rather than the long dominant “consensus-equilibrium model.”
The problem of family violence yet has not been successfully analyzed sociologically. However, attempts at the theoretical investigation of the problem have been made slowly but steadily. The existing sociological theories and conceptual frameworks which might be useful in analysis of family violence could be categorized into three types : intraindividual, socio-psychological, and sociocultural theories. An attempt to develop an integrated theory of family violence has been made by Gelles and Straus. The recent growth of theoretical and empirical research on intrafamily violence gives hope for the establishment of such theoretical integration in the foreseeable future. In addition, the present discussed some possible reasons for the fact that why violence exists not anywhere else but in the very family itself.
It is important that the social scientists who are seriously concerned about reduction of the level of intrafamily violence move away from the descriptions and explanations of relationships between variables towards theory construction and theory verification.
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