We examine the effect of spousal beliefs about violence as a justified behaviour on the incidence of intimate partner violence using nationally representative survey data for India. Utilizing an Instrumental Variable approach, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in individual’s exposure to parental violence as instruments to identify the causal effects. We find that both women’s and men’s inherent beliefs justifying “wife beating” exposes women to a higher probability of IPV compared to their counterparts who do not justify such behaviour respectively. Furthermore, the marginal effect of a woman’s beliefs appear to be greater than that of men’s beliefs thereof.