Domestic violence, a very common term in India for ages. Domestic violence is synonymous with family violence which envelopes elder abuse, child abuse, and the forms of violence between family members moreover domestic violence which is more common with the spouses is often defined as Intimate Partner Violence. Terms like wife battering, wife-beating, husband beating, husband abuse, wife abuse are regularly used in instances of domestic violence. This abuse is not limited physically, the terms like battering and battered are less accepted nowadays because they do not cover up other forms of violence which go beyond physical abuse. These other forms of abuse also have the potential create to severe mental and emotional disorders in individuals which can escalate into acts of suicide and self-damage.
In case of domestic violence, one can seek court and can file a divorce petition for mental or physical torture. The court can protect you if your abuser harms you physically or tries to harm you physically and makes you afraid that serious physical harm is going to happen to you or threatens, pressurizes you, or forces you to get intimate. Thus a court order can protect you from further harm under an abuse prevention order, a restraining order, or under 209A.
Primarily discussing the protection given to women from domestic violence is given under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005. For example, not giving you money to run the household or for the children would fall under the definition of economic abuse as per this act. Definition under this act of Domestic Violence under section 3 of the act goes like-
For this Act, any act, omission or commission, or conduct of the respondent shall constitute domestic violence in case it—
(a) Harms or injures or endangers the health, safety, life, limb, or well‑being, whether mental or physical, of the aggrieved person or tends to do so and includes causing physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, and economic abuse; or
(b) harasses, harms, injures, or endangers the aggrieved person to coerce her or any other person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any dowry or other property or valuable security; or