Universally Held Gender Based Violence, Cultural Tolerance and Its Implications on Marriage Institution Among the Esan People of Nigeria.

Generally violence against women has always existed in every society. Until very recently violence against women, particularly domestic violence was considered a private issue. It comes in different forms: from physical, sexual to psychological abuse. These forms of violence have been internationally recognized as forms of human rights abuse. But what is not clear is whether violence against women is perceived the same way, across countries and cultures, such that required responses to them are agreed to across countries and culture. Hence this study investigated how married women perceive and respond to intimate partner violence in Esan land and the implications of such attitudinal responses to the marriage institution among the Esan people of Nigeria. Our population of study was married women who have been married for the past ten years. Through the Multi-Stage sampling technique 240 respondents were selected for the study while in-depth interview were conducted to elicit information from respondents. The data were analyzed through content analysis. Our findings show basically that Esan women would rather abide by Esan cultural orientation regarding the treatment of women, being the shared values of Esan people, rather than universally based precepts. Hence the women responded peculiarly to spousal abuse, depending on the circumstance, as against the universal definition and there is a high level of culture of tolerance and endurance, even in the midst of justifiable reasons to leave violent partner which informed the low level of divorce rate in the studied population.