Key Social Norms Take-aways Shared and internalized acceptance of wife-beating is closely associated with women’s experience of spousal physical violence. The findings suggest that patriarchal gender norms can normalize violence as legitimate discipline or control, while family and community expectations to “adjust” or preserve marriage may reinforce women’s tolerance of abuse. The authors emphasize addressing gender norms among couples, rather than focusing only on women or men individually.

Objectives To examine whether spousal concordance or discordance in attitudes justifying wife-beating is associated with married women’s experience of spousal physical violence in India using a dyadic, couple-level approach.

Methods This cross-sectional study analyzed nationally representative 2019–2021 National Family Health Survey data from 44,933 married couples. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and binary logistic regression were used to examine associations with women’s reported experience of physical violence. Attitudes toward wife-beating were assessed separately for husbands and wives across seven circumstances, including a wife going out without telling her husband, neglecting the household or children, arguing with him, refusing sex, not cooking properly, suspected unfaithfulness, and disrespecting in-laws. Couples were classified as both rejecting wife-beating, only the wife accepting it, only the husband accepting it, or both accepting it.

Results Overall, 35% of couples both rejected wife-beating, 24% had only the wife justify it, 17% had only the husband justify it, and 23% both justified it. Physical violence was reported by 18% of women when both spouses rejected wife-beating, compared with 35% when only the wife justified it, 23% when only the husband justified it, and 39% when both justified it. Compared with couples who both rejected wife-beating, adjusted odds of physical violence were highest when both accepted it (2.02), followed by wife-only acceptance (1.92) and husband-only acceptance (1.20). Childhood exposure to parental violence and husbands’ controlling behavior were also strongly associated with physical violence.

Conclusions Spousal agreement in justifying wife-beating, particularly when both partners accept it, is strongly associated with physical violence. The authors recommend couple-focused and community-based approaches that challenge patriarchal beliefs, reduce acceptance of wife-beating, and promote more equitable gender norms and relationships.