Domestic violence has always happened everywhere to some degree but behind closed doors. Even if people knew it was going on, there was a conspiracy of silence in that neither neighbours nor authorities would intervene in something that was considered a private matter.When I was a kid in the last millenium, we were raised never to hit a girl or a woman. A man who was known as a wife beater was viewed as lower than whale shit. It just wasn't my family either, it was our entire community, from church to school to wherever. My parents had a great marriage so there was rarely anger present. My uncle and aunt had a shitty marriage but he would never have touched her in anger. It's just something everyone grew up with.
That philosophy is absent here it seems. The men should be shaming any other man who hits his wife/girlfriend. There can be no tolerance for violence like that.
Old fashioned male gallantry is all very well but it is not enough to prevent violence. It goes hand in hand with women being seen as property and having to be submissive. Any woman who breaks these rules is seen as deserving of being beaten.
What we see in the DR is an extreme manifestation of this dynamic, much more exposed to the public because of the conditions most people live in. It is easier to keep it private when you live in a villa and the neighbours can't hear your wife's screams.