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Theories Of Cycle Of Violence

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The Cycle of Violence
The cases of domestic violence are very common in nowadays society, where women are the typical victims involved. According to Walker (1999), domestic violence can be defined as battering of women by the men. One of the most suitable ways to explain this phenomenon is the cycle of violence. The cycle theory of violence illustrates how the behaviour of an individual who commits domestic and family violence can change so drastically from time to time (Walker, 1979). Besides, the cycle also explains why an affected person keeps on facing a violent situation (Walker, 1979). According to Newman and Newman (2008), through the Walker’s Cycle Theory of Violence, the cycle of violence can be divided into three phases, namely, the tension build-up phase, the acute battering phase and the honeymoon phase, as shown in Figure 1, and the cycle keeps on spinning until there is a presence of intervention in between. The term intervention in this case can consist of the intervention from the government authorities as well as the communities. Besides, the duration of each phase varies and the level of violence increases over the period (Walker, 1979). Nevertheless, Walker stated that not all women experience the cycle of violence as well as some of them may merely experience one or two stages of the cycle.

The first stage of the cycle of violence is the tension build-up phase. According to Newman and Newman, the relationship between the husband and the wife is
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