Introduction

Abstract

The United States and India are both forms of democracies and consist of a variety of cultures with very different systems of beliefs and traditions. Over time, victims of domestic violence in both countries have fought for legislative relief, with the struggle for women’s rights in general providing the scaffolding for those efforts. The United States represents the pinnacle of progress and modernization; India, however, symbolizes all that is ancient and traditional as it advances forward to take its place as a major, industrialized nation. A comparative study of the domestic violence laws of these two countries can illuminate the critical issue of intimate partner violence through the lenses of two similar, yet different, societies. Whereas in the United States different ethnic groups form a somewhat cohesive community, the Indian counterpart comprises a caste-ridden society with twenty-two official languages.