The family is the smallest social unit, but the most important supporting and educational effective unit. The requirement of people for peace leads to forming a relationship based on emotion and wisdom, to have the feeling of security, trust, health, support, and significance for both sides. The effective role of women is undeniable in the creation of emotional and moral attachments, but this aim will not come true but for the creation of a calm environment, and free from violence for all family members. The family will be efficient if it is far from chaos. The violence threatens health and family security. Domestic violence or violence against women in the family is the most common form of violence against them, in which the violent behavior of one family member (usually a man) towards another family member (usually a woman) [1].

Domestic violence, especially violence against women, is not a new phenomenon, statistics and information extracted from various studies show that violence against women is a global problem and can be seen in most societies. In Afghanistan, unfortunately, there are no accurate statistics on the phenomenon of spousal abuse. However, the lack of statistics cannot be a valid reason for ignoring it. The term "violence against women" refers to any violent act against the female gender that leads to mental, physical, and sexual injury or suffering (Kolami, 2008: 2).

Investigating the situation of women shows that violence against women is evident in most families (Hasan et al., 2009: 78), but women are reluctant to express it in any way and want to hide this issue for various reasons such as preserving their reputation. They hope to change the situation to a favorable one and... (Khan et al., 2019: 68). Although women have played an effective role in the family [2]. But it is because men do not understand the problems related to women in the family and make violence against women in the family seem normal that there is violence against women [3]. which has caused no measures to improve the situation. However, experience has shown that if women do not have security in the family, they can never gain this security outside the family. (Kalani, 2018).

The most common type of violence against women is the imposed violence against a life partner which is named as domestic violence or the violence by a near partner. The statistics of public health organizations indicate that at least onetime physical abuse is reported by 18 to 68% of women in developed countries and 28% of them in developing countries [4]. Although violence against women is forbidden in many countries, the reality is that violence against women is hidden behind cultural customs, social norms, and religious beliefs, and sometimes violence against women as coordinated behaviors with the cultural condition is considered as worthy and likable. So, the main purpose of the research is to investigate the domestic violence rate and its effects on Herat women.

Theoretical Basics Domestic Violence

The term domestic violence can be used for all the family behaviors like “maltreat with the partner”, “violence against women”, and other terms. Although this term is the most common term for “violence against women”, it's always used as the term for family violence. Although the last term is more general, all the violence happened at home, including the violence against the wife and children. But in very of the texts about violence and daily communications, the first term is more common and is used more.

Domestic violence can be introduced as a set of behaviors, that people have to control the behaviors and emotions of others. For example, expressing extreme jealous behaviors and creating terror in others, causes the isolation and loneliness of the victim and causes the hostile person to remain in the position of controlling other people in the family. The victims of domestic violence, most of whom are women, are often subjected to death threats, sexual assault, and economic deprivation, and their children and their belongings are severely damaged. Proving the existence of this control system is quite difficult and often remains hidden from the eyes of people outside the family. Because its victims, due to the fear of revenge, do not dare to tell anyone about it. Such behaviors are often chosen and designed by the aggressor in such a way that they can keep the other person under control. Regarding the definition of family violence, Shakta and Ganley have provided one of the most comprehensive and complete definitions available; They define family violence as follows: "Domestic violence is aggressive and oppressive behavior, including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks, as well as the application of economic pressure by any adult or young person towards the person with whom they have a relationship. It is close and cramped" [5].

The National Committee on Violence Against Women defined violence in 1991 in Australia as the behavior of men to control their victim that leads to emotional, physical, and sexual hurts and social loneliness or economic deprivation, such a situation that women live in fear”. (Mazzini, 2015).

Emotional Violence

Emotional violence is an aggressive behavior that damages the eyebrow, dignity, and self-confidence. This behavior is demonstrated through unfair criticism, humiliation, ridicule, obscenity, and constant threats to divorce or remarriage. The result of this kind of violence is Cognitive disability, loss of self-confidence, types of depression, women's inadequacy in family management, ambition in the work environment, avoidance of participation in social affairs, reproduction of violent behavior in children, children's lack of success in education, women's inefficiency in the family environment, taking refuge in psychedelic drugs, alcohol, narcotics, fortune-telling, and rumination" (Menzi, 2015).

Economic Violence

Economic violence is an aggressive behavior that men do towards women, and if the men in the family don’t get along with women in financial issues, life will be too hard for women without income. In other words, financial violence is an aggressive behavior that is done for force, harassment, and financial discrimination; like not meeting the financial needs of the family and selling home appliances. (Danish and Tavani, 2015).

Physical Violence

it is a kind of physical action to damage, frighten, or control the wife such as slapping, pushing and throwing, kicking and punching, grabbing and pulling the wife's hair, beating the wife with a belt, whip, etc., threatening to kill the wife, etc. (Danish, Sharbat Ian and Tawaf, 2016).

Sexual Violence

Forcing to have sexual intercourse is another kind of violence which is done about women. Sexual rape is considered as the most harmful type of violence against women. It includes inappropriate and unusual requests from the sexual partner. This kind of violence is imposed in the area of personal, sexual, and family life, and if obedience to the husband is necessary, or in the case of intimate relationships is applied in the circle of relationships against women. (Danish and Tavani, 2015).

Social Violence

Social violence is an aggressive behavior including types of social limitations such as forbidding meetings with relationships and colleagues, locking a woman at home, and hanging up. In this type of violence, by preventing the social growth, education, expansion of intellectual activities, and social relations of their wives, men prevent her from achieving her rights, goals, and dreams and cause her intellectual retardation and freezing (Muezzin). 2015).

Emotional Violence

Emotional violence is the verbal violence of the husband that is not seen on the body. It is a procedure in which one person is emotionally damaged gradually through the actions of another person. Loring defined it as a procedure that one person emotionally damages gradually through the actions of another person [6].

Verbal Violence

Verbal harassment is considered as a violent behavior. These actions are unpleasant ones which are kinds of abusive face, harsh tone, contempt, mockery, sarcasm, and … which may lead to physical domestic violence.

It can be said that remarkable resources are written in Afghanistan about the violence against women with a destructive analytical approach. Here, some resources are mentioned. An article with the title of another Side of sexual inequality: men and masculinity features in Afghanistan) was written by Chone AR et al. in 2013 and was published by the Unit of Research and Survey of Afghanistan (AREU). This research mostly points out the violence against women from men and demonstrates the patriarchy governing the society of Afghanistan. The attention to the lack of limitation of statistical society in this research is noticeable.

Another article title (The Violence Against Women in Parliament Election in Afghanistan 2016) was written by Korbin and Avaya and was published by AREU in 2017. The mentioned article is about the electoral violence against women in the election of Afghanistan in 2013, and the findings show that insecurity, harassment, and unconsciousness of family members account for not their involved in the political process.

Another article under the title (Women's Participation in the Peace Process of Afghanistan) was published by Shukri Azamines and Ehsanullah Ghafoor in 2019. The importance of the role and participation of women in the peace process is the explanatory approach of the aforementioned researchers. The findings of this research show that the role of women in the peace process has been symbolic rather than institutional, and its actual location has not been clarified.

Research done with a descriptive-analytical approach in the field of family violence against women (what it is, contexts, damages, and solutions) has been presented by Jami University in 2017. In this research, the general concepts, background of family violence in Afghanistan, types of family violence against women, factors and the causes of family violence, and finally the consequences and damages of family violence.

According to the studies conducted in the field of family violence against women in Afghanistan, especially in the geographical area of Herat Province, there has been no research with a quantitative approach to present the real results of the presence or absence of violence against women (scale).

The presented research is applicable from the point of view of purpose and destructive- survey and its type is intermittent (spring 2019).

The Tools of Research

The tools of research in this study are the standard questionnaire of “The Violence Against Women” by Danish et al. (2016). This questionnaire was surveyed in 7 dimensions emotional violence (8 objects), financial violence (7 objects), physical violence (8 objects), sexual violence (4 objects), social violence (6 objects), emotional violence (7 objects), and verbal violence (5 objects). This questionnaire is designed with 45 objects having a 5-degree scale as never, rarely, sometimes, mostly, and always. So, the demand for the scores of the questionnaire is between 0 to 180. In the study done by Danish et al, the content validity of the questionnaire was surveyed and confirmed through the expert comments. To calculate the reliability of research Cronbach’s alpha has been used with a reliability of 0.75. in this research, the reliability of the questionnaire is 0.96 through Cronbach’s alpha, which is higher than the acceptable range of 0.7.

Statistical Population, Sample Size, and Sampling Method

The statistical population of this research includes all married women of Herat City.

Referring to Cochran's sampling formula for the population with an unknown number, the sample size corresponding to the above statistical population is 384 people. Herat city is divided into 15 districts based on the municipal division. To collect the required data about the people of the research community, the sample size was selected by a simple random sampling method, and equal numbers were selected from each district.

Information Analysis Methods

To analyze the data, statistics will be used at two descriptive levels (frequency, percentage, average, standard deviation) and inferential. To analyze the questionnaire, taking   into account the measurement level of variables and using SPSS statistical software, independent samples t-tests and analysis of variance are used.

In Table 1, the frequency, valid percentage, standard deviation, and average domestic violence rate of the respondents are explained based on the number of marriage years, age, religion, the number of family members, education, job, nationality, dress, income rate, house type, and vehicle.

The number of years of marriage of the respondents is between 1 and 42 years, which is divided into six groups for a better description: 1 year, 2 to 5 years, 6 to 10 years, 11 to 20 years, 21 to 30 years, and above 30 years. Are grouped the largest number of respondents (41.3 percent) had been married for 2 to 5 years. The least number of respondents were married over 30 years old (1.2%).

In Table 1, the frequency, valid percentage, standard deviation, and average domestic violence rate of the respondents are explained based on the number of marriage years, age, religion, the number of family members, education, job, nationality, dress, income rate, house type, and vehicle.

The number of years of marriage of the respondents is between 1 and 42 years, which is divided into six groups for a better description: 1 year, 2 to 5 years, 6 to 10 years, 11 to 20 years, 21 to 30 years, and above 30 years. Are grouped the largest number of respondents (41.3 percent) had been married for 2 to 5 years. The least number of respondents were married over 30 years old (1.2%).

• The age range of the respondents is between 18 and 60 years, which are divided into five groups for better description: less than 20 years, 21 to 30 years, 31 to 40 years, 41 to 50 years, and 51 to 60 years. The largest number of respondents (62.4 percent) are 21 to 30 years old. The lowest number of respondents is 41 to 50 years old (2.5%).
• The religion of most of the respondents (80.5%) is Sunni and 19.5% is Shia.
• The household size of the respondents is from 1 to 12 people, which is divided into three groups for a better description: less than 5 people, 6 to 10 people, and more than 10 people. In the household dimension, the largest number of respondents (66.5 percent) is less than 5 people.
• The largest number of respondents (57.3 percent) have a bachelor's degree and the least number of respondents (1.1 percent) have a doctoral degree.
• The job of most of the respondents (26.3%) is being student and 18.3% of them has no job.
• The largest number of respondents (34.6%) are Tajik and the lowest number of respondents (1%) are Arabs, Fars, and Baloch.
• Most of the respondents wear Chador, (71.6%), and the less respondents (9.4%) wear Burqa.
• The income of most of the respondents (53.2%) is between 5000 and 10000 Afghani.
• Most of the respondents (62.8%) have personal houses.
• Almost 55% of the respondents have personal vehicles.
• A significant difference was observed between the number of years of marriage of the respondents in terms of the level of domestic violence based on the results of the ANOVA test (P=0.000). In this way, people with more than 30 years of cohabitation (69 ± 33.5) and people with one year of cohabitation (29.04 ± 31.1) have experienced the highest amount of domestic violence.
• A significant difference is not observed between the age groups in terms of the rate of domestic violence based on the result of the test of variation analysis. (P=0.626).
• The rate of domestic violence which is experienced by the Shiite respondents (30.54%) is more than the Sunni ones (65.04%) there is not a significant difference between these two groups according to the result of T test of the independent samples, in terms of statistical data. (p=0.001).
• A significant difference was observed between the household dimensions in terms of the level of domestic violence based on the results of the analysis of variance (P=0.001). In this way, respondents with more than 10 people in the household have experienced the highest amount of domestic violence (41 ± 30.3).
• A significant difference was observed between respondents' education in terms of domestic violence based on the results of analysis of variance (P=0.000). In this way, respondents with school education have experienced the highest amount of domestic violence (36.29 ± 33.3).
• A significant difference is seen among the respondents in terms of domestic violence according to the result of the variation analysis test (p= 0). So, the housewives experienced the most rate of domestic violence (50.47 ±36.1).
• The rate of domestic violence experienced by respondents with different nationality does not show a significant difference. (p = 0.428). Having Uzbek nationality respondents experienced the most domestic violence (28.3 ± 27.3).
• The rate of domestic violence of the respondents with different clothing shows a significant difference. (p= 0). So, the respondents with a Burqa experienced the highest rate of domestic violence (41.34 ± 34.2).
• The level of domestic violence of respondents with different income levels shows a significant difference (P=0.009). In this way, respondents with an income of 15 to 20 thousand Afghani have experienced the highest amount of domestic violence (25.38 ± 30.7).
• A significant difference is seen between the house types of respondents in terms of domestic violence based on the results of the variation analysis test. (p= 0). So, the respondents hiring a house experienced the most rate of domestic violence (36.62 ± 33).
• There was no significant difference between having or not having a vehicle of the respondents in terms of the level of domestic violence based on the results of the independent samples t-test (P=0.167).

Table 1: The Distribution of Frequency and Percentage Distribution of Demographic Variables of The Respondents (Married Women of Herat).

Table 2: The rate of domestic violence is presented for married women of Herat according to different dimensions.

According to Table 2, domestic violence rarely experienced the greatest number of respondents (322 people = 83.9%).

Regarding mental violence (44 %), financial violence (54.7%) and emotional violence (66.1%), most of the respondents rarely experienced domestic violence.

Regarding physical violence (66.1%), sexual violence (76.5%), social violence (46.6%), and verbal violence (63.5%), most of the respondents did not experience any domestic violence.

In Table 3, statistical indicators of domestic violence and its dimensions are presented.  Considering the results of this table, the married women of Herat experienced emotional violence more than others. After that, they experienced financial, mental, social, verbal, physical, and sexual violence respectively, more than other types.

Table 3: The indicators of statistical variables of domestic violence and its dimensions.

Based on the descriptive results, respondents with an income of 15 to 20 thousand Afghani have experienced the highest amount of domestic violence (25.38 ± 30.7). This result is to the "resource theory" those men often have economic resources in their hands and this causes them to be superior in family relationships, while women are mainly dependent on their husbands in terms of economic resources, on the other hand, as are in charge of taking care of the children, if they leave the men, they will face economic problems; Therefore, they remain in violent relationships.

According to the descriptive results, respondents with more than 10 people in the household have experienced the highest amount of domestic violence (41 ± 30.3). This result is to the "social structure theory" that people with a large number of children have many family problems and are under the influence of many situational tensions.

According to the descriptive results, one of the factors affecting the level of domestic violence is the level of education, which is consistent with the research of Derakhshan Pour et al. The effects of domestic violence, the level of education, and the addiction of the spouse in the family have been stated.

According to the results of the research, married women in Herat City have experienced emotional violence the most. This result is to the results of the study by Danesh, Sharbatian, and Tawafi [7] entitled "Sociological analysis of domestic violence against women and its relationship with the feeling of security at home (a case study of women aged 54-18 years old in the middle city)" which showed that he most common type of domestic violence in the middle city was emotional, verbal and psychological violence.

According to the results of the research, married women of Herat City have experienced sexual violence the least. This result is consistent with the results of Turkashund et al. [8] entitled "Investigation of the frequency of domestic violence in women referring to the health and treatment centers of Rafsanjan in 2013", which showed that sexual violence has the lowest frequency. be

In total, about 96% of married women in Herat City have experienced domestic violence, although rarely. This result is similar to the research of Derakhshanpour et al. [9] titled Prevalence of Domestic Violence against Women in Bandar Abbas, which showed that 92% of women were victims of domestic violence.

According to the findings of the research, it is necessary to pay attention to the factors affecting the occurrence of domestic violence and especially emotional violence by some people, and this can be investigated by knowing the personality and social characteristics of people. Also, the media, educational, and awareness-raising institutions can play an effective role in reducing and controlling this social problem as much as possible by producing instructive content about the consequences of such violence for all family members.

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