Association between polygyny and justification of violence among women in sexual unions in sub-Saharan Africa
Aboagye, Richard Gyan, Essuman, Mainprice Akuoko, Dzirasah, King David, Seidu, Abdul-Aziz, Adnani, Qorinah Estiningtyas Sakilah, and Ahinkorah, Bright Opoku (2025) Association between polygyny and justification of violence among women in sexual unions in sub-Saharan Africa. BMC Public Health, 25 (1). 1719.
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Abstract
Background: There remains a dearth of comprehensive understanding of the fundamental origins of intimate partner violence within the context of marital structure. This study examines the association between polygyny and justification of violence among women in sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods: We used up-to-date data from the Demographic and Health Surveys of twenty-one sub-Saharan African countries. A multilevel binary mixed-effect regression analysis was used to examine the association between polygyny status and justification of violence, controlling for potential covariates. The results were presented utilising adjusted odds ratios (aOR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).
Results: Women whose husbands/partners had other wives (co-wives) (aOR = 1.35; 95% CI 1.30, 1.40) had higher odds of justifying wife beating if wife goes out without telling compared to those whose husbands/partners had no co-wives. Similar results were obtained concerning the association between polygyny and justification of wife beating if wife burns food (aOR = 1.31; 95% CI 1.25, 1.36), neglects children (aOR = 1.31; 95% CI 1.27, 1.36), argues with the husband (aOR = 1.37; 95% CI 1.32, 1.43), and refuses to have sex with her husband (aOR = 1.30; 95% CI 1.25, 1.35).
Conclusions: The endorsement of violence against women within relationships, irrespective of the rationale, undermines worldwide and national endeavours aimed at tackling the issue of intimate partner violence and its associated repercussions. It is imperative to implement diverse approaches to effectively tackle the situation. Increased education and awareness campaigns focused on intimate partner violence are expected to play significant roles in effectively tackling this issue. Implementing punitive measures against individuals who perpetrate intimate partner violence upon their partners could also be adopted.
| Item ID: | 87739 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1471-2458 |
| Keywords: | Acceptance of violence, Demographic and Health Survey, Justification of violence, Multiple sexual unions, Polygyny, sub-Saharan Africa, Women |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Oct 2025 23:19 |
| FoR Codes: | 44 HUMAN SOCIETY > 4402 Criminology > 440209 Gender and crime @ 30% 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 70% |
| SEO Codes: | 20 HEALTH > 2005 Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) > 200509 Women's and maternal health @ 100% |
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