Experience of Intimate Partner violence among married couples: the case of Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe

Abstract The Mashonaland Central province has had the most recorded cases of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) as recorded by 2021 statistics. The study, using triangulated qualitative and quantitative methods, tested the hypothesis that both women and men are abused. SPSS Version 21 was used to do a multinomial regression on how sex, age gap, and income affects IPV’s distribution. A survey was used to measure the levels of IPV in the province while qualitative data from face-to-face interviews was used to help explain these levels. With 16.5% prevalence rate, sexual violence was the least form of IPV suffered followed by physical violence at 17%, economic abuse at 27.5%, and emotional abuse at 33.5%. Sexual violence was mostly perpetrated by men with odds of women suffering it higher by 4 times (OR = 4.61; 95%CI = (0.216–0.985) than men. Moreover, the less a man earned coupled with the spouse earning more, the more he physically abused her. If a woman earned <ZWL$10000, she suffered emotionally and economically. Men who suffered violence reported to have suffered emotionally, in the hands of their wealthy counterparts. The study therefore recommends for easily accessible couple’s therapies and more psycho social support services for abused men.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Gender-Based Violence is a global crisis with sexual violence cases being suffered by girls and boys from an age as young as 2 months old. This has raised international eyebrows till global policies to curb it and punish perpetrators have been introduced and been redefined over the years. This paper focused on analysing the causes of Intimate Partner Violence suffered by women in Mashonaland Central, Zimbabwe, towards coming up with policies to mitigate the causes. The study found out that women who earn more money, relative to their spouses suffer emotional abuse while those that earn average income suffered economic violence, when their partners take their earnings without their concert. However, men also suffer the former type of violence if they do not earn enough to fend for the family. For these results, policy recommendations were presented at the end of the paper.

Introduction
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a type of gender-based violence (GBV) that has been defined by World Health Organization (WHO) as a self-reported experience of one or more acts of physical and/or sexual violence by a current or former partner since the age of 15 years (World Health Organization, 2013) 1993, World Health Organization (2013,, and Mukamana et al. (2020) noted that violence has had the same impact of death and incapacity among women of the reproductive age as cancer and has caused more ill health than malaria and traffic accidents combined. The highest reported violence statistics where in Afghanistan and Papua New Guinea who had 46. 1% and 47.6% prevalence in 2015, respectively (United Nations Population Fund, 2021United Nations Population Fund, 2021). This, and other high prevalence, has led to many resolutions and laws on how to curb violence through governmental rules, punishments, and legislation. Such pieces of legislation include the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1979 by United Nations Human Rights (UNHR) Office of the High Commissioner and the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1820 of 2008.
In Zimbabwe the Domestic Violence Act [Chapter 5:16] Act 14/2006, the Anti-Domestic Violence Council of 2006, partnering with the spotlight initiative and the Msasa Projects, are laws, organizations, and partnerships aimed at reducing IPV. Regardless of the aforementioned policies and strategies, lifetime prevalence of IPV has remained high mostly in developing economies ranging from less than 5% in Armenia and Comoros to more than 40% in Afghanistan in low-and middleincome countries in 2020 (Coll et al., 2020;Coll et al., 2020).

Background
In Zimbabwe, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Gender Protocol 2013 Barometer gives evidence that Mashonaland Central province has the highest lifetime IPV experience prevalence with nine in every 10 women having experienced a form of gender-based violence (Katembo, 2015;Katembo, 2015). In Katembo's research, the most prevalent form of gender-based violence was physical violence at 67%, followed by political violence with 8%, then other forms of violence, namely, child abuse and sexual violence. With such a background, it has become a need for deep research and new policy initiatives that can help reduce the cases of abuse in various household setups. This study therefore was meant to identify the prevalence and predictors of IPV among married couples. Over the years, studies done in Zimbabwe by Mashiri (2013), 2016and Mukamana et al. (2020 have been focusing more on the trends and forms of IPV against women only. Specifically, Mashiri (2013) focused on the conceptualization of GBV including IPV, while Mukamana et al. (2020) analyzed the trends in prevalence and correlates of IPV against women. This study, however, seeks to close the literature gap by investigating how IPV perpetration is distributed among married couples in Mashonaland Central.

Theoretical review
Two theories have raised debates on what the basis of initiating IPV is and on who the perpetrators of violence are. On one end, the family violence theories support the availability of gender symmetry in GBV perpetration. Gender symmetry is extent to which women are equal perpetrators of violence in intimate relationships (Lawson, 2012;Lawson, 2012). This is shown in the Integrated Ecological Framework model introduced by (Heise, 1998). The model shows that IPV perpetration by any spouse regardless of their sex, is a result of many factors ranging from personal ones to the society or macro system. Individual/Ontogenic Factors pertain to features of an individual's life experience. Next in the interplay are microsystem or situational factors which are interactions in which a person directly engages with others, especially in a family setup. Exosystem factors follow and are represented by the formal and informal setup that an individual lives in. Last but not least are the macrosystem factors which are cultural values and beliefs that inform the other three layers of the social ecology. These factors affect an individual unit, be it male or female into becoming an IPV perpetrator (Dutton, 2006;Dutton, 2006). On the other end, in contrast to the first view, IPV is deemed to be fundamentally a gender issue that cannot be adequately understood through any lens that does not include gender as the central component of analysis (Dobash & Dobash, 2013;Dobash & Dobash, 2013). The proposition from this feminist theory is that domestic violence is highly unlikely to be perpetrated by women and wife abuse is an expression of male domination over women (Lawson, 2012). Dobash and Dobash (2013) assert that the patriarchal domination of women by their spouses through wife abuse emerged from the long cultural history of legally sanctioned male subordination and ownership of women. In the feminists view, wife abuse is not just another expression of a family violence but is a separate phenomenon with its own causes, properties, correlates, and after effects such that it cannot be viewed in the same space with other forms of family violence (Dobash & Dobash, 2013;Dobash & Dobash, 2013). They acknowledge the fact that married couples engage in conflicts and they fight including force used by women but do not consider them as violence relationship traits but normal relationship trials as they do not imply the systematic, frequent, and brutal use of physical force. Jewkes et al. (2017) in their research concluded that higher education and less poverty conveyed protection from IPV. Their study further indicated that the most prevalent form of violence in marriages was emotional abuse. However, this was distributed with men suffering from 1.4% to 5.7% while women suffered 4.1% to 27.7% in Asia and the Pacific. The main findings indicated that perpetration of IPV comes from both partners with 56.25% perpetrators being men and 43.75 being female perpetrators. Adebowale (2018) indicated that for Nigeria most spouses' age difference was between 8.20 plus or minus 5 years. In that age gaps, the majority had suffered emotional abuse in the marriage. Their main conclusion was however that increasing the spousal age difference reduces the level of violence in the household. Moreover, increasing levels of household wealth decreased the likelihood of IPV, physical violence, and sexual violence but did not affect emotional violence. Concurring to the views about household wealth is a study by Coll et al. (2020), who indicated that richer and more empowered women reported less IPV. The study investigated Intimate Partner Violence in 46 low-income and middle-income countries and it also concluded that IPV varied widely per county and of the 46 countries, Armenia had the lowest with 5% prevalence and Afghanistan had the most with 40% prevalence.

Study focus
The research's main objective is to measure the prevalence and distribution of IPV in Mashonaland Central and will investigate how much of the violence have been perpetrated by men and women distinctively. IPV is defined in four forms namely physical, sexual, emotional, and economic abuse. The participant had to represent if they had suffered any form during the twelve months prior to the commencement of this research. Following a research by Allen and Anderson (2017), physical abuse was defined as the extreme form of aggression that has severe physical harm as its goal. Emotional violence was defined as verbal aggression directed at an intimate partner with the goal of severely harming the target's social well-being or emotions (Allen & Anderson, 2017).
As noted by Bagwell-Gray et al. (2015), sexual violence has been identified as difficult to measure amongst intimate partners. However, globally recognised definition as according to S. G. Smith et al. (2018), Bagwell-Gray et al. (2015), and Basile (2008) defines it based on four characteristics that are the lack of consent, whether completed or attempted, included force and includes a sexual activity ranging from noncontact sexual harassment to penetration. Over the years to 2008, there had been no measure of economic violence and this became the focus of a research by Adams et al. (2008) to develop the scale of economic abuse. In the development, they defined economic abuse as behaviors that control a woman's ability to acquire, use, and maintain economic resources, thus threatening her economic security and potential for self-sufficiency.

Study Area and Target population
The study investigated IPV in the Mashonaland Central province of Zimbabwe. After a broad review on IPV in Zimbabwe and according to some of the ZDHS reports, this region has the most violence against women, according to the few literature obtained. Most studies, however, fail to indicate that men too suffer violence and hence the study investigated on perpetration distribution among men and women for the province. Couples who were married and aged between ages 15 to 69 were a part of the study. The lower age limit was set to 15 as most girls in the area get married around that age while the upper limit represents the number of most inhabitants in the area under study.

Design
The study triangulated qualitative and quantitative research methods. A cross-sectional survey, using a questionnaire, was done from four wards in the Mashonaland Central region, namely, Rushinga, Mbire, Muzarabani and Guruve, with 200 participants. The data, with the assistance of Spotlight Initiative, Lower Guruve Development Association (LGDA) and Farmer Association of Community self-Help Investment Group (FACHIG) was collected using a four-part questionnaire that helped collect household information and data on partners' employment and income status, the spouse's experience of IPV and other issues concerning IPV. Face-to-face interviews were done as a follow-up to get a deeper understanding of the cause of different actions. In these, individuals were asked to open up more about the extent of the abuse and even give a narration of how it happened. These also helped to better understand the situations as portrayed by the respondent. A narrative analysis was done using these responses and experiences shared by people to help answer the research questions. This is defined as the relaying of how a story happened, when and why it happened, in what setting, the consequences and lessons learnt (Stephens & Breheny, 2013;Stephens & Breheny, 2013).

Sample size determination
Using Cochran's sample size determination formula of 1977 (Israel, 2003;Israel, 2003), a total sample of 67 individuals per town was used. The formula is given by: Where; z (1.96) = the critical value of the 95% confidence interval this study will be using; p (0.5) = the probability of success, q (0.5) = the probability of failure and e is the desired level of precision which is 0.12 for this study.
n ¼ 1:96 2 � 0:5 � 0:5 0:12 2 ¼ 67 The target sample size was 67 individuals in each of the four towns totalling 268 individuals. However, due to the sensitive nature of the topic only 200 individuals were interviewed.

Sampling procedure
After the purposive sampling of Mashonaland Central among the seven provinces in Zimbabwe, stratified sampling methods were then used to select the four cities, namely Guruve, Mbire, Muzarabani, and Rushinga in the Mashonaland Central province. The area was chosen as because of its remoteness, few literature has been made available towards the region. The participants were then selected at random upon passing the eligibility criteria. To be eligible, the partners had to be married to their partners. Due to the nature of the variables under study in this research, only a subset of 200 married respondents were successfully interviewed and included in the final sample.

Data measurements
Intimate partner violence was measured in four forms namely sexual (SexIPV), physical (PhyIPV), emotional violence (EmoIPV) and economic abuse (EcoIPV). All forms of IPV will be measured in binary form with an 1 representing a yes and a 0 for a no. For instance, if the interviewee ticked yes for the question "For the past 12 months did your spouse force you into having sex or into indulging in sexual acts?" it would indicate that she has been sexually abused. Primary data was collected for this study.

Data management and analysis
Descriptive statistics were used to measure the frequency of the occurrence of violence towards both men and women. For further analysis, the two groups of individuals (male and female) are grouped in terms of their age-gap and income groups to undertake a comparative analysis based on different factors. This was done in an excel sheet by grouping the collected data accordingly. The groups are divided into three equally spaced age groups starting from 15 to 35 then from 36 to 51 and from 52 to 70. These groups represent the young, the middle-aged and the older. There are six income ranges from ZWL$ 0, <10,000, ZWL$ 10,000-20,000 ZWL$ 20,001-30,000, ZWL$ 30,001-40,000 and > ZWL$ 40,000, respectively. A multinomial regression was then done in SPSS v21 to find the multivariate analysis of the different factors that affect the four forms of IPV

Ethical considerations
The research was approved by the department of Economics and Development from the faculty of Business Sciences and Economics at the University of Zimbabwe. The four criteria of ethics, informed consent, confidentiality, privacy and anonymity were upheld upon obtaining a formal letter from the department. The first criterion entails how participant is willing to participate by waiving their right of privacy was guaranteed by the signatures of the participants on the consent form. Upholding confidentiality meant that the researcher had to ensure that the names and contact information or the respondents were kept private which was done by giving them identification numbers in place of their names. Privacy pertained to the respondents in terms of whether they were willing to violate their private information for the purposes of the research. The researcher made sure the respondent was confident enough to share the information on their own without them being persistent. Last and importantly, the researcher ensured that participants were not associated with the research by keeping their private life private.

Demographic and economic characteristics of the respondents
Females constituted the majority of the respondents, 65% (Table 1), whereas the majority of the respondents, 45%, were aged between 36 and 51 years. A sizeable proportion of the married couples, 11.5% were youths. Nonetheless, more females (19%) than males (4%) were aged between 15 and 24 years. Only 7% of the respondents were aged between 52 and 70 years, with little variation by sex, 9% males and 5% females. The majority of the married couples, 45.8%, in Mashonaland Central earned less than ZWL$ 10,000, with little variation by sex, 47% females and 45% males. A quarter of the respondents, 24.7%, reported that they earned between ZWL$ 10,000 and ZWL$ 20,001. However, while 30% of the males reported that they earned between ZWL$ 10,000 and ZWL$ 20,001, only 10% of the females reported the same. Only a small proportion of the respondents, 3.3%, reported that they earned at least ZWL$40000. However, more males (6%) than females (1%) reported earnings at least ZWL$40000. The sample was educated with the majority of the respondents, 98%, having ever been to school. However, males were more likely to have completed at least secondary education when compared to females. Consistently, while 23% of the respondents reported that they had completed tertiary education, males (30%) were more likely to have completed tertiary education than females (16%). On the other hand, females were more likely to have attained at most primary level of education when compared to males. For example, 23% of the respondents reported that they had completed at most primary education.

Levels of Violence by background variables and age-difference
Almost 24%, a quarter, of the total participants reported to have ever suffered intimate partner violence in Mashonaland Central for the 12 months prior to the commencement of the research (Table 2), however, more females (31.7%) than males (15.5%).

Physical violence
Physical violence was common among married couples in Mashonaland Central Province. Nearly one-fifth of the respondents, 17%, reported that they had experienced physical violence  12 months preceding the survey (Table 2). However, it was common among women (24%) than compared to males (10%). The majority of the female respondents, 34%, who experience physical violence earned at least ZWL$40000. Experiencing of physical violence was also associated with the different income levels (males p = 0.049; females 0.037). Of the percentage of men and women who did not earn, 50% and 20% suffered violence, respectively. A moderate number of men, 17% and 15%, reported to suffering physical abuse while they earned above 0 income but below ZWL$20 000 while the same percentage of women (12%) women suffered it while earning the same respective incomes. No men who earned between ZWL$20 001 and ZWL $30 000 and greater than ZWL$40 000 per month suffered this form of violence as compared to the 12% and 34% women. According to Table 3, physical violence, was highest when the man was older than his spouse by 3 to 7 years.

Sexual violence
Sexual violence was also common among the couples in the province. Almost a fifth of the respondents, 17%, reported to have suffered this form of violence in the past 12 months (Table 2). It was associated with men's income (P = 0.049) and women's income (P = 0.037). However, all respondents who earned more than ZWL$ 40,000 and suffered sexual violence were 16.8% and females only. This was also the case for participants from the income group from ZWL$ 10,000 to ZWL$ 20,001 were all the 5.8% of the participants were female. Although women suffered more for the aforementioned income groups, in the rest of the income categories, men suffered more. Of the categories of men and women who do not earn, more men (50%) suffer sexual abuse than women (20.4%). Like physical violence, in terms of aggap between the spouses, sexual violence was mostly reported in hosehold were the man was older by 3 to 7 years (table 3).

Emotional abuse
More than the other aforementioned forms of violence, both sex suffered most emotional violence as represented by the 42% and 25% men who suffered. Aggregately, 34% of the participants reported to have suffered emotional abuse making it the most suffered violence in Mashonaland Central (Table 2). Though the huge number, emotional abuse was only associated with women's income (P = 0.076). Participants who earned income between ZWL$ 10,000 and ZWL$ 20,000 reported to have suffered most emotional abuse (21%). The least number of participants who suffered emotional abuse did not earn any income at all.

Economic abuse
Like emotional abuse, economic abuse was related to women's income (P = 0.097). It was also the second most form of abuse that was suffered in Mashonaland Central with a total prevalence of 28%, thus representing more than a third of the sample participants. The majority of victims were women (38%) as compared to men (17%). The majority of the female respondents earned between ZWL$20001 and ZWL$ 30,000. A fair number, 27.4%, suffered economic abuse while earning income of less than ZWL$ 10,000. However, all women who earned more than ZWL$ 40,000 did not report to have suffered any of the forms of economic abuse. Eviden from table 3, an increase in the age-gap from between 8 -12 years to 13 -17 years, with the men being older meant a decrese in all forms of violence by 22%, on average.

Multinomial regression
A multinomial regression indicated that sex, women's income and men's income were the only variables that affected intimate partner violence as shown in Table 4.

Sex
Sexual violence was seen to be mostly perpetrated by men as the odds of a woman suffering from sexual abuse was higher by 4.6 times than that of men. Economic abuse was mostly perpetrated against men as the odds of women suffering economic abuse was lower for women, particularly those who earned between ZWL$10 000 and ZWL$30 000 by 0.5 units and 0.2 units, respectively.

Women's income
Women's income affected all forms of violence except sexual abuse (Table 4). Women who earned income level less than ZWL$10000 and greater than ZWL$40 000 had lower odds of experiencing physical violence that are 0.036 and 0.052 times the odds of women earning between ZWL$30000 and ZWL$ 40 000, the baseline income group, respectively. Similarly, the odds of women who earned less than ZWL$10000 and between ZWL$20001and30000were lower by 0.2 units for both income groups when compared to the baseline group. However, the odds of a woman suffering emotional violence were higher if their income was between ZWL$ 0 and ZWL$30000 by 20 times and 10 times across the four income groups, respectively.

Men's income
Men who did not earn income at all, who had lower odds of suffering physical IPV by 0.054 times.

Narratives
Qualitative analysis revealed that the patriarchal system still exist in the four towns in Mashonaland Central as men still heads the house even when the women earns more income. This has led to backlash when the women earns more than the men. More so, some women in the  rural areas believe that violence is a form of punishment from their husbands when they fail to play their wifely duties. One lady said, while smiling, that: "Baba vakambondirova mumwe musi ndapisa nyama, haa ndakarwadziwa asi ndatojaira kana ndakubika ndotoona kuti handina kupisa nekuti shamhu inenge yakandimirira.' (The father of the house once slapped me as I had burnt the night's relish. I was hurt. I am used to it now but every time I cook I am careful to not burn food as I will receive what is due to me.) In the same view was a 32 year old lady indicated that: "Kana murume wangu atsamwiswa kubasa ndotozviona, anosvika achindituka tuka asi ndiko kuti mukadzi wotongozvigamuchira nekuti ndiwe mubatsiri wake." (When my husband comes back from work angry, He scolds me continuously but that is my portion as a wife, I accept it as a normal gesture" Women who earned income greater than ZWL$40 000 indicated that men are threatened by their income for their positions in the household and hence the physical and emotional fights may erupt between the two, by saying: 'Ehe ndotambira more than my husband nekuti iye he fails to provide, asi haatende anenge achingondishora zvakadaro. Mumwe musi takatorwa mumba ndikamutema nepoto after andidhumhisa kumadziro tikatotukana ndikamuuda kuti handina basa nazvo nditoriwo murume muno nekuti ndokukunda kuchengeta mhuri. "Yes, I earn more than my husband to provide for the family as he fails to fend for it. One certain day we had a physical fight, and I threw a pan toward him after he had pushed and slammed me towards the wall, just before we exchanged hurtful words. I told him that I don't care what he does because I am also a 'man' as I can fend for the family more than him.' A few men were open to share how they were emotionally abused by their counterparts but one old man in particular, in tears, mentioned that: 'Mukadzi wangu paakashaya ndakapihwa munin'ina wake aitemwa dzinobuda ropa. Zvino ndaiti tichagarisana zvakanaka asi anondituka nekundinyomba ahiita zvaanoda pamberi pangu nevamwe vakomana vechidiki. "When my wife of age died, I was given to marry her young sister. However, she doesn't respect me, she scolds me even without me doing anything wrong, and she is involved in immoral acts with young men in my face.'

Discussion
The study investigated on the four types of IPV namely physical, sexual, emotional, and economic. Results from the investigation also helped identify which theory between Heise's Ecological model and the Feminist model applied in the province. The average IPV Prevalence in Mashonaland Central for the past 12 months was 23.6% which was lower than that in Afghanistan which was 40% in 2020 (Coll et al., 2020;Coll et al., 2020). However, this was not solely perpetrated by men only. While 32% was initiated by men, 15.5% women initiated violence against their husbands.
Although the results concurred with Jewkes et al. (2017) view that men are the greater perpetrators of IPV, Zimbabwe's couples had more average cases of 32% and 17% prevalence by men and women, respectively, against 27.7% and 5.7% men and women perpetrators in Asia and the Pacific. The results indicate that IPV perpetration comes from any spouse regardless of their sex as it is a result of many factors ranging from personal ones to the society or macro system (Heise, 1998;Heise, 1998).

Emotional violence
The majority of the participants claimed to have suffered emotional abuse, but women more than men suffered it by 21% more. Men suffer such a form of violence as women are said to not have the masculinity to either physically attack or sexual attack the males and hence they resort to hurtful words or actions of humiliating their partners. Emotional abuse was also popular in Asia and Pacific (Jewkes et al. (2017), Bindura (Mtetwa, 2017) Nigeria (Adebowale, 2018) and 46 Middle to Low income earning countries (Coll et al., 2020). Zimbabwe, with 33% average prevalence of emotional abuse in Mashonaland Central had more prevalence with 1% to Colombia and reported more than the rest of the Middle to Low income earning countries (ibid). Couples with women who earned between ZWL$30 000 and more than ZWL$40 000 suffered the most emotional abuse. Men tend to be intimidated by women who earned more which describes the male-backlash behaviour. Men who earned less than ZWL$10000 also suffered emotional abuse on the basis that they were not able to support their household needs. This was contrary to Nigeria data to which income did not affect emotional abuse at all in 2018 (Adebowale, 2018;Adebowale, 2018).

Economic abuse
Economic abuse was reported at all among couples with women who did not earn any income and those who earned income levels greater than ZWL$ 40 000. Economic abuse, since it was defined in terms of a spouse taking the income of the other spouse without their consent, could not have been perpetrated towards women and men who did not earn at all. However, for men who earned less than ZWL$10 000, suffering emotional abuse by 22% was because of financial problems in the household. This was true also for data from Asia and the Pacific in 2017 which concluded that the less the poverty, the less the violence. Zimbabwe's prevalence of economic abuse was more that of Indonesia by 14% (Fulu & UN, 2013;Fulu & UN, 2013), equal to that of United States, a developed Country in 2014 (Voth Schrag, 2015;Voth Schrag, 2015) but less than that of Mumbai, India by just 1% (Kanougiya et al., 2021;Kanougiya et al., 2021).

Physical violence
One of the least common forms of violence suffered in this province is physical abuse. Women who earned income level less than ZWL$10000 and greater than ZWL$40000 had lower odds of experiencing physical violence that are 0.036 and 0.052 times the odds of a woman earning between ZWL $30000 and ZWL$40000, respectively. This implies that those who earned income greater than ZWL $30 000 suffered physical violence in their households. Furthermore, men who earned less suffered physical violence (16.5%) less than emotional (18.7) and economic abuse (22). The comparison with other forms of violence was also the same for developed and developing economies for instances: 7.1% for USA (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000;Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000); 4% for England and Wales (K. Smith et al., 2011;; 10% in Kenya (Adebowale, 2018;Adebowale, 2018).

Sexual violence
With 16.5% prevalence rate, sexual violence was the least form of IPV in Mashonaland Central. However, this was common among men who did not earn at all while it was not suffered at all by men with income greater than ZWL$20 001. Results from Jewkes et al. (2017) study agree to the same notion than men are major perpetrators of sexual abuse (23% compared to 10%) which to a larger extent is supported by the feminists' theory and to some extent is supported by Heise's Ecological framework. The multinomial regression results indicated that the odds of a woman suffering sexual abuse was higher by 4.6 times than that of men.

Limitations of the study
The sensitive nature of the topic was one of the major challenges especially when men had to report that they suffered violence in the hands of their wives. The 200 participants were not equally distributed in terms of age differences and income groups making it hard to infer and determine the behaviour of men in the Mashonaland Central province, for instance, with wives older with 9 years and not earning income (one man in each case). This was also partially because of the Covid-19 pandemic that had restricted the gathering of large groups of individuals.

Recommendations for future study
The focus area of the study was Mashonaland Central particularly four towns Muzarabani, Mbire, Rushinga, and Guruve where a population sample of 200 individuals was obtained. For further study, one should increase the sample size by making a similar analysis for the whole of Mashonaland Central or for Zimbabwe as by collecting different samples from all provinces. The sample size was also limited to those partners currently married which meant exclusion of the divorced individuals who would have also suffered IPV during their marriage. Studies in future should conduct analysis' that are inclusive of this group. An odd outcome was the fact that no variable could explain the existence of sexual violence in the Mashonaland Central province. There is a need for a study on determinants of such a form of IPV. The government can outsource researcher to do this study so that policies implemented target the root cause of the problem.

Conclusion
The study was measured the prevalence and distribution of IPV in Mashonaland Central. It used survey questionnaires for data collection and a few face-to-face interviews. SPSS v21 was used for analysis and while descriptive analysis indicated that the majority of men suffer from emotional violence while those with older wives and those who do not earn income in cash suffer sexual and physical abuse, a multinomial logit regression indicated that men only suffer emotional abuse from their wealthy partners. For women earning less or the husband earning more made them more vulnerable to physical, emotional and economic abuse. Not earning at all, however, reduced their odds of suffering economic abuse. Sexual abuse was only experienced by the women. With these results, the study recommends for the establishment of financially and physically accessible couple's therapies. These will be aimed at assisting the families in the rural areas to realize the positive implications of women earning more and men earning less. These will also help the couples resort to relationship-building solutions to arguments or misunderstandings, which is not violence. Moreover, more psycho social support services for abused men are needed. With the focus shifting defending women who has suffered abuse, men have been neglected and painted as the only perpetrators. However, they are abused too and they need more psychological support after being a victim, to help them regain and maintain their integrity and confidence.