Inside the Kin Network: Consanguineous Marriage, Patriarchal Bargaining, and Women's Acceptance of Intimate Partner Violence in Pakistan

Abstract

Women in Pakistan report greater acceptance of intimate partner violence (IPV) than men in several domestic situations. This study examines whether marital kinship structures are associated with women's attitudes toward IPV. Although consanguineous marriage is widespread in Pakistan, its relationship with women's acceptance of IPV remains poorly understood. We investigate whether marriage between blood relatives is associated with women's justification of IPV and whether this association varies between situations involving challenges to patriarchal authority and routine domestic responsibilities. Using nationally representative data on 15,065 ever-married women aged 15-49 from the 2017-18 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, we estimate binary and ordered logistic regression models. We also use propensity-score matching, inverse probability weighting, kernel matching, radius matching, and Mahalanobis-distance matching to improve comparability between women in consanguineous and non-kin marriages based on observed characteristics. Consanguineous marriage is associated with greater acceptance of IPV in four of the five scenarios examined: going out without permission, refusing sexual intercourse, neglecting children, and arguing with a husband. No statistically significant association is found for burning food. Alternative matching methods produce similar patterns across the four scenarios. Education, household wealth, and participation in household decision-making are associated with lower acceptance of IPV, whereas prior experience of violence is associated with greater acceptance. Significant regional differences also suggest that local institutional and normative contexts shape attitudes toward IPV. Because the data are cross-sectional and matching addresses only observed differences, the findings should be interpreted as conditional associations rather than causal effects.