Religious Arbitration of Marriages Involving Domestic Abuse

This work explores the use of religious councils, courts and panels to confer divorce or annulment in the Muslim, Jewish and Catholic faiths. It focuses specifically on how these mechanisms recognize and respond to marriages involving domestic abuse.

The project leads, Dr Natasha Mulvihill and Dr Nadia Aghtaie, were funded by a Zutshi-Smith bequeathal to the University of Bristol to convene an international symposium on this issue. This event took place on 3 September 2024 in Bristol, UK. A report of the symposium is linked below on this page.

Natasha and Nadia are currently editing a special themed issue on the religious arbitration of marriages involving domestic abuse for the Journal of Law and Religion. Publication is expect mid-2026.

This work builds on our earlier research on faith and gender based violence.  See:

Aghtaie, N., Mulvihill, N., Abrahams, H., & Hester, M. (2020). Defining and Enabling ‘Justice’ for Victims/Survivors of Domestic Violence and Abuse: The Views of Practitioners Working within Muslim, Jewish and Catholic Faiths. Religion and Gender, 10(2), 155-181. https://doi.org/10.1163/18785417-20200001

Mulvihill, N., Aghtaie, N., Matolcsi, A., & Hester, M. (2023). UK victim-survivor experiences of intimate partner spiritual abuse and religious coercive control and implications for practice. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 23(5), 773-790. https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958221112057

Mulvihill, N., Aghtaie, N., Matolcsi, A. and Hester, M., 2022. Faith and Coercive Control: A briefing for faith communities and for practitioners working with victim-survivors of coercive control. Bristol, UK: University of Bristol. https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/326732014/Mulvihill_et_al_2022_Faith_and_Coercive_Control_Practitioner_Briefing.pdf

To follow.