Economic Abuse and Family Violence Across Cultures: Gendering Money and Assets Through Coercive Control

Abstract

Across cultures, men control and use economic and financial resources to instill fear, intimidate and degrade their wives/partners so that women lose their sense of self and human rights. This form of abuse takes different pathways as it strips away the moral norms associated with the gender of money. In middle-income, Anglo-Celtic marriage, the joint banking account symbolises partnership in marriage, but can also become a medium of coercive control. Among recent Indian migrants, the culturally accepted male control of money becomes abusive when money is not used for the wellbeing of all members of the family. Drawing on ongoing qualitative research into cross-cultural experiences of economic abuse in Australia, this chapter argues that economic abuse constitutes a breach of trust which must be investigated within the broad context of the gender and morality of money. It should be criminalised in order to recognise that its impact on women and their safety can in some instances be greater than physical assault.