Men must be going crazy

Jun 14, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

This past week made for horrible reading if only because of the nature in which people were being killed and the fact that these people were women who had shared relationships with their killers.
I happened to be doing my morning jog when I got a call that a woman had been killed on West Demerara. The caller was someone who provided me with a lot of information about the goings-on in that part of the world. He would call me in the dead of the night to tell me about robberies and about other crimes.
This time when he called even he was shocked at the nature of the killing. A man had been separated from his wife for all of two years but it seemed that he never got over her. His relatives later said that there was a child at the centre and that he lived for his child although on one occasion he threatened to kill the child and actually took away the child to an undisclosed location. The intervention of his relatives probably saved the child’s life.

However, from what transpired, it seemed that the woman was always at the centre of the man’s attention. On the fateful day the woman somehow ended up where the man knew she would be and the rest is history.
People later spoke of seeing the man standing over the woman’s body, vomiting after he had knifed her. There are reports that the man then set about taking his own life by knifing himself and then taking a dose of poison.
At my desk we debated how we would treat the story. We know that there are copycats in the society and we knew that it does not take much for people to try to top what another had done.
The very next day we went after the story of another man taking a knife to his woman. This woman has survived so far but what was horrible was the savagery of the attack. The woman ended up with a knife broken in her stomach.
At the newspapers we took a conscious decision that we would downplay this attack. But it seems as though we did not make an impact because on Friday yet another man killed his spouse. Again the weapon of choice was a knife.

In my quiet moment I began to ask myself why is it that a man has to kill his spouse. This is the woman who shares your bed, helps you with everything that must be done and sees that you appear presentable on the streets.
Over time people’s personalities change and sometimes the change often leads to an end of a relationship. But in my book when two people cannot seem to get along the safest and best thing to do is to go their separate ways. But then again, some men believe that they own the woman.
I have fathered three daughters and I spoke to each of them about abusive relationships. I always said to them that if a man happened to hit you once leave him for good. As fate would have it, my daughters are independent and they therefore do not have to tell themselves that they need any man for financial reasons.

That is why I firmly believe that parenting has gone through the window. In my day parents spoke to their children; mothers to their sons about treating women well and mothers to their daughters although in some cases there were the mothers who taught their daughters the tricks of living with a man.
Most of the men from my days always believed that a woman needed to be protected and they did just that. Indeed men killed women but certainly not at the rate they are doing so today. There have been the crimes of passion, but many men have been known to walk away from such situations.

Just the other day a young man called me in the dead of night to inform me that he was standing outside a hotel into which his woman had gone with another man. I remember telling him not to do anything stupid and to ensure that he complied, I suggested that he call me early the next morning. He did.
He told me that when he confronted the woman at the scene she told him some cock and bull story. They are separated today and the man has undertaken to support his children. In fact, he told me that he wanted custody. However, the law states that unless there are valid reasons, the woman is the legal guardian of her children.

I still believe that no man has a right to hit a woman and some men found out the hard way. Just the other day a woman burnt her spouse with hot oil as he slept.
And I cannot forget the woman who tortured her husband. The man was known to hit her repeatedly and one day she said enough was enough. She waited until he slept and put on a pan with oil.
She kept sprinkling some water in the oil as the man dozed. She had nowhere to go the next day but he had to go to work. Believe it or not, he moved out as soon as day broke. I like to sleep so I am not prepared to hit any woman.
Addendum: GPL did it to me again. I never got to see the end of the match between West Indies and South Africa.