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bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb 152 In the mid s, even as the South Asian anti–domestic violence activists organized to safeguard women, the mainstream of the diasporic community denied the very existence of woman-abuse. It has been particularly disinclined to acknowledge domestic violence based on four commonly held beliefs: () the class-based assumption that education and affluence protect against intimate violence; () the concept of unbreachable family privacy; () the shame associated with abuse perpetrated by intimates; and () the image of an impeccable immigrant group (read: model minority). When such violence occurred, South Asians were either oblivious to it or asserted that it was an anomaly perpetrated by a few sick individuals and therefore deserving of little serious attention. However, domestic violence remains a significant issue among South Asians in America, an issue that has not yet been adequately addressed or investigated. This study was undertaken to attend to this gap in research and enhance understanding of domestic violence in South Asian contexts. It explores attitudes toward intimate abuse in one particular segment of the South Asian community, the Jains. The Jain community is distinguished by its adherence to radical nonviolence, ahimsa, and strict religiosity. Our goal in selecting this particular community was to assess the pervasiveness of woman-abuse among South Asian immigrants and test whether religious endorsement of nonviolence can erect a protective buffer against domestic violence. Religion and Domestic Violence Religion and women’s movements have had sharp differences regarding their approaches to defining and dealing with intimate violence. Although both groups agree on a woman’s right to live in safety in her family, they tend to diverge around the method of achieving it. Furthermore, they differ on the priority allocated to 11 Ahimsa and the Contextual Realities of Woman Abuse in the Jain Community SHAMITA DAS DASGUPTA AND SHASHI JAIN Ch011.qxd 11/6/06 10:26 AM Page 152 AHIMSA AND THE JAIN COMMUNITY 153 women’s safety versus integrity of marriage (Cunradi, Caetano, and Schafer ; Merry ; Nason-Clark ). Battered women’s movements have generally asserted that, above everything, women have the right to be safe in their homes. To this end, the legal system and community must support a woman’s security, even at the cost of her marriage. Feminist perspectives on domestic violence have connected violence against women with their secondary status in patriarchal societies and family structures (Bograd ; Dobash and Dobash ; McElvaine ; Pence ; Schechter ; Stark and Flitcraft ; Yllö ). The theory that imbalanced gender roles play out in woman-abuse has been corroborated by research in diverse societies, including immigrant ones in America (Ahmad et al. ; Boonzaier and De La Rey ; Bui and Morash ; Johnson and Johnson ; Yoshioka, DiNoia, and Ullah ). Thus, the focus of contemporary anti–domestic violence work has been on empowerment of women and social change toward gender equality (Angless , Maconachie, and Van Zyl ; Coker ; Pence ; Pence and Shepard ; Sharma ; Vijayanthi ). Although most religious institutions readily share in the concerns of women’s movements regarding battered women’s safety, they have vigorously differed on the option of divorce as a viable solution to intimate violence. Instead of disintegration of marriage, religious institutions have generally promoted change in the conjugal relationship and perpetrators’ hearts (assuming that behavior will follow) to ensure women’s safety and well-being. For example, in most Eastern religions, such as Hinduism , Jainism, and Buddhism, the concept of divorce is absent altogether. Concurrently , many religions assume gender roles are divinely ordained and therefore beyond mortal alterations. Feminist efforts of social change, thus, have not always been acceptable to religious traditions. Despite such fundamental differences, in recent years, both religious institutions and battered women’s movements are increasingly recognizing the need for collaboration to facilitate women’s right to live free of domestic violence (Engelsman ; Fortune and Enger ; Holmes ). Hitherto, most of the scholarly documentations and practical guides on domestic violence have focused on Judeo-Christian religions (Cunradi et al. ; Engelsman ; Fortune and Enger ; Holmes ; Merry ; Miles ; Moltman-Wendel ; Nason-Clark ). Studies on Eastern religious traditions and their relationships to violence against women are virtually nonexistent. This investigation strikes a break in this trend. The study was conducted in the Jain community, a community defined by its religion that originated and is still widely practiced in India. The keystone of Jainism is nonviolence, which makes the group particularly valuable as a milieu for research on domestic violence. Jainism: A Primer Jainism is an ancient religion, which is practiced mainly in the western parts of India. Although Jainism...

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