Violence against women is not a new or recent phenomenon women have been the victims of violence all through the age, in all societies, cultures regions or religious communities in the world.

It is indeed, ironic that in India, which has given rise to apostles of peace and non-violence, women have to bear the brunt of violence-domestic as well as public, physical as well as emotional and mental.

Violence against women can be viewed in the historical perspective, for it is to a large extent, linked to her status in society.

In the Vedic period, Indian women enjoyed a relatively comfortable position. Gradually violence against them beggar to be practised; the doors of educational, economic, social, political and cultural opportunities were gradually closed for them.

Even their personal freedom in respect of movement, diet, dress, marriage, etc. comes to be curtailed. Every effort was made to make them meek and docile. Women also began to be enslaved and prostituted.

All this brought them to the level of chattel or cattle. They became commodities which could be sold and purchased which could be tailored to perform different functions.

Various obligations restrictions and regulations were imposed on them and different penalties and punishments were prescribed if women violated them. Thus violence against them came to have a societal sanction.

Around the begging of the Christian era, Manu laid down the Hindu code. His laws insist that women must consider her husband as a God; she should be kept dependency by her husband.

The ideal women is one who does not strive to break these bonds of controls; the salvation and happiness of a women revolve around her virtue and chastity as a daughter, a wife and a widow.

Worse still, a widow’s life began to be denied from around the sixth century A.D. when the practice of sati was introduced.