
Marital Infidelity and Intimate Partner Violence in Rural Malawi: A Dyadic Investigation. Extramarital sexual partnerships are a common reason for intimate partner violence (IPV) in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the fact that IPV requires an interaction between two partners, the majority of the research focuses on individuals rather than the broader relationship context where such violence takes place. Using a sample of 422 married couples from rural Malawi, this study examined the dyadic environment of marital infidelity and two types of IPV victimization: sexual coercion and physical abuse. We considered both self-reported marital infidelity and perceived partner infidelity to assess how well partners knew each other and to compare their respective associations with IPV. Logistic regression was used to test for associations between self-reported marital infidelity and IPV. Multilevel logistic regression was used to examine actor and partner effects of perceived partner infidelity on an individual's and their partner's experience of IPV.