Domestic violence is not only a private crisis. This study finds that it can be widespread, hidden by silence, and tied to beliefs that make harmful behavior seem ordinary. Violence against women is one of the most widespread, persistent, and harmful violations of human rights in today’s world.

It is often not reported because of silence, shame, stigma, and the belief that nothing will happen to the abuser. Domestic violence against women harms individuals, families, and society. The study set out to investigate both how common it was and what women experienced in Semnan.

The scale reaches far beyond one household. It is estimated that thirty-five percent of women, almost one out of every three women aged fifteen to forty-nine, experience physical or sexual violence by a spouse or another sexual partner during their lifetime.

Different forms of family violence are often connected. Like a harmful pattern passed through a family, abuse can persist from children who witness it into their adult relationships and later into how older family members are treated. The study combined two kinds of evidence: one measured how much violence women reported and what factors were related to it, while the other focused on women’s own experiences of that violence in Semnan.

The information was collected with consent, kept anonymous and confidential, and participation was voluntary, so participants could withdraw from the study at any time. The women’s accounts gathered around seven connected themes: what helped violence happen, failures in expected roles, forces that kept women from speaking, efforts to preserve the family, poor ways of handling conflict, the consequences, and ineffective support systems.

Together, these themes cover factors that may shape violence, pressures surrounding family roles and preservation, ways of handling conflict, consequences, and the shortcomings of support systems. The reported violence was not concentrated only at the mild end: the largest group had experienced severe violence, while smaller groups had experienced moderate or low violence.

That pattern matters because it describes violence as a serious burden across the group, not as a rare event affecting only a few isolated households. Women’s experiences of domestic violence are presented as part of a wider family system: anger and conflict sit alongside pressure to preserve the family, failures in expected roles, harmful responses, consequences, and weak support.

This matters because violence is not portrayed as one isolated act, but as something sustained by several surrounding forces. Patriarchal beliefs rooted in social tradition and family upbringing scored highest in relation to domestic violence. The study also found that treating men’s anger and harassment as normal can discourage women from expressing what is happening.

The results contained a difficult surprise: higher education and income among women were linked with higher violence scores. That does not mean education or income causes violence; it means violence was found across women with different ages, education levels, and social positions, and most cases were not reported.

The study says that some factors linked with violence are already known, so prevention can act before violence occurs rather than waiting for the damage to deepen. It calls for breaking the taboo around domestic violence and taking counseling and divorce seriously as possible ways to reduce harm to women, children, and families.

The study points to a cycle supported by cultural beliefs, silence, family pressures, and weak support. Recognizing those forces matters because prevention and real help can reduce harm to women, children, and families.