It can range from subtle, coercive forms to marital rape and other violent physical abuse, such as choking, beating, female genital mutilation, and acid throwing that may result in disfigurement or death, and includes the use of technology to harass, control, monitor, stalk or hack.

The victims may be trapped in domestically violent situations through isolation, power and control, traumatic bonding to the abuser,[14] cultural acceptance, lack of financial resources, fear, and shame, or to protect children.

As a result of abuse, victims may experience physical disabilities, dysregulated aggression, chronic health problems, mental illness, limited finances, and a poor ability to create healthy relationships.

[36][37] English common law, dating back to the 16th century, treated domestic violence as a crime against the community rather than against the individual woman by charging wife beating as a breach of the peace.

In 1824, the Mississippi Supreme Court, citing the rule of thumb, established a positive right to wife-beating in State v. Bradley, a precedent which would hold sway in common law for decades to come.

[51] This publication urged countries around the world to treat domestic violence as a criminal act, stated that the right to a private family life does not include the right to abuse family members, and acknowledged that, at the time of its writing, most legal systems considered domestic violence to be largely outside the scope of the law, describing the situation at that time as follows: "Physical discipline of children is allowed and, indeed, encouraged in many legal systems and a large number of countries allow moderate physical chastisement of a wife or, if they do not do so now, have done so within the last 100 years.

[81][82] In the Middle East and other parts of the world, planned domestic homicides, or honor killings, are carried out due to the belief of the perpetrators that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family or community.

[83][84] According to Human Rights Watch, honor killings are generally performed against women for "refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce" or being accused of committing adultery.

In northern Ghana, for example, payment of bride price signifies a woman's requirement to bear children, and women who use birth control face threats of violence and reprisals.

The countries which ratified the Istanbul Convention, the first legally binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women,[54] are bound by its provisions to ensure that non-consensual sexual acts committed against a spouse or partner are illegal.

[133] Emotional abuse includes minimizing, threats, isolation, public humiliation, unrelenting criticism, constant personal devaluation, coercive control, repeated stonewalling and gaslighting.

[145][146] Economic abuse diminishes the victim's capacity to support themselves, increasing dependence on the perpetrator, including reduced access to education, employment, career advancement, and asset acquisition.

Researchers supporting this theory suggest it is useful to think of three sources of domestic violence: childhood socialization, previous experiences in couple relationships during adolescence, and levels of strain in a person's current life.

Such research has shown that corporal punishment of children (e.g. smacking, slapping, or spanking) predicts weaker internalisation of values such as empathy, altruism, and resistance to temptation, along with more antisocial behavior, including dating violence.

[220] According to Violence against Women in Families and Relationships, "globally, wife-beating is seen as justified in some circumstances by a majority of the population in various countries, most commonly in situations of actual or suspected infidelity by wives or their 'disobedience' toward a husband or partner.

[222] In a 2012 news story, The Washington Post reported, "The Reuters Trust Law group named India one of the worst countries in the world for women this year, partly because [domestic violence] there is often seen as deserved.

"[226] The UN Population Fund writes that:[227] "In some developing countries, practices that subjugate and harm women – such as wife-beating, killings in the name of honour, female genital mutilation/cutting and dowry deaths – are condoned as being part of the natural order of things".

[248] In addition, the Council of Europe adopted the Istanbul Convention, which requires the states that ratify it to create and fully adjudicate laws against acts of violence previously condoned by traditional, culture, custom, in the name of honor, or to correct what is deemed unacceptable behavior.

[303] The strongest evidence comes from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study which shows correlations between exposure to abuse or neglect and higher rates in adulthood of chronic conditions, high-risk health behaviors and shortened life span.

The most commonly referenced psychological effect of domestic violence is PTSD, which is characterized by flashbacks, intrusive images, an exaggerated startle response, nightmares, and avoidance of triggers that are associated with the abuse.

[318] During the mid-1990s, the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study found that children who were exposed to domestic violence and other forms of abuse had a higher risk of developing mental and physical health problems.

[325] Consequences to these children are likely to be more severe if their assaulted mother develops PTSD and does not seek treatment due to her difficulty in assisting her child with processing his or her own experience of witnessing the domestic violence.

[327] The FBI's LEOKA system grouped officer domestic violence response deaths into the category of disturbances, along with "bar fights, gang matters, and persons brandishing weapons", which may have given rise to a misperception of the risks involved.

Limitations of methodology, such as the conflict tactics scale, that fail to capture injury, homicide, and sexual violence rates,[349] context (e.g. motivations, fear),[350] disparate sampling procedures, respondent reluctance to self-report, and differences in operationalization all pose challenges to existing research.

While in most developed countries domestic violence is considered unacceptable by most people, in many regions of the world the views are different: according to a UNICEF survey, the percentage of women aged 15–49 who think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances is, for example: 90% in Afghanistan and Jordan, 87% in Mali, 86% in Guinea and Timor-Leste, 81% in Laos, 80% in Central African Republic.

[385] The Maputo Protocol of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights adopted a broader definition, defining violence against women as: "all acts perpetrated against women which cause or could cause them physical, sexual, psychological, and economic harm, including the threat to take such acts; or to undertake the imposition of arbitrary restrictions on or deprivation of fundamental freedoms in private or public life in peacetime and during situations of armed conflicts or of war".

[407] While the general literature indicates that adolescent boys and girls engage in IPV at about equal rates, females are more likely to use less dangerous forms of physical violence (e.g. pushing, pinching, slapping, scratching or kicking), while males are more likely to punch, strangle, beat, burn, or threaten with weapons.

The Encyclopedia of Victimology and Crime Prevention states, "For several methodological reasons – nonrandom sampling procedures and self-selection factors, among others – it is not possible to assess the extent of same-sex domestic violence.

); co-existent situations (unemployment, substance abuse, low self-esteem); victims' reactions (fear, feelings of helplessness, hypervigilance); and reasons for staying (love, can work it out, things will change, denial).

The WHO writes that, "Dismantling hierarchical constructions of masculinity and femininity predicated on the control of women, and eliminating the structural factors that support inequalities are likely to make a significant contribution to preventing intimate partner and sexual violence".