Attitudes Toward Marital Violence

This article examines wife abuse attitudes among a sample of 507 Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Cambodian adults living in the United States. The findings show that 24% to 36% of the sample agreed that violence is justified in certain situations such as a wife's sexual infidelity, her nagging, or her refusal to cook or clean. Southeast Asian respondents were more supportive of attitudes supporting male privilege and of the use of violence in specific situations in comparison with the East Asian respondents. Korean respondents were unique in their relatively weak endorsements of violence in contrast to the remaining three groups studied.