Domestic violence is so unnecessary

Apr 29, 2018 Features / Columnists, My Column

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There seems to be no end to the shocking things that are happening in Guyana at this time. There is an increase in domestic violence that is leaving women dead. There were four such deaths in the past two weeks and we can only hope that this was a spike.
In many cases the view was that infidelity was the cause. Men are possessive animals, although this is not reflected in the society. There are still too many single parent households headed by women. The men seem to be wandering off, but they still keep an eye on the household.
In recent times the women were just killed because they failed to do something that would have pleased the man. In one case the woman did not finish the meal, so the angry man simply killed her.
To think that a woman could lose her life over so simple a thing boggles the mind. It is not that the woman has nothing else to do, but the man does not take that into consideration.
I remember seeing a movie in which the man felt that the woman had nothing to do while he went out to work. As fate would have it, the Supreme Power caused him to change places. He faced the grim reality. He never realized that there was so much that the woman does, especially since she has to clean up after him.
He laboured through the day, praying to get back to his other role, but there was a catch. He got pregnant in that time. I can imagine his horror, because he must now cope with the pains of labour and childbirth.
Apart from the soldier who had a failed marriage and started another relationship, most of the killers are by no means educated.
So we come to the point where the woman must explain to the world why she chooses to remain in the violent relationship. There is a teacher whose husband is a policeman and an alcoholic. This teacher claims that her husband was the first man in her life and there are the children to think about.
She did seek help by going to a senior police officer who had control of the man. His contribution was shocking to say the least. He reportedly told the woman that she either liked the sex or the abuse to remain in the relationship for so long.
The woman more recently went to his place of employ and got the advice that she should return home and try to patch up the relationship.
I know of cases where the woman opted to leave, only to be stalked by her partner. There have been cases where she refused and ended up dying. This happened on the East Coast Demerara recently. The woman took the advice of her relatives and left the man and the children.
The man used her weakness—her love for children—to get her to come to the home where he waited patiently. She never lived to see her children.
This man was not brave enough to visit himself with the same fate he visited the wife, so the State must now support him. He is not the only one. There was the man who killed the woman then lay in the bed with her until the police came.
A few of them ran away and were found dead. Two of them took poison, suggesting that there was some madness to their action.
These relationships did not start violently. Of that I am certain. Something changed along the way and the woman remained in it for too long. Now there are organisations that offer help, but many women do not know how to access them.
The reality is that this life is a vicious cycle. If parents could talk to their sons at an early age to respect women there could be a drastic reduction. I fathered two sons who never assaulted their wives. I tried to tell them that if their wives are angry and she is making a big fuss, all they needed to do was to remain silent.
Some would say that this is a difficult thing because the woman often makes some hurtful comments. Indeed there are these comments, but they are only words. I do know that the woman becomes angrier when the man refuses to answer. Some even resort to hitting but again, how hard can she hit?
I remember going home and seeing my now ex-wife in a strange mood. I knew I had done nothing, but there she was shaping for a fight. It turned out that she simply wanted a quarrel because we did not have one for a long time. I did not have to kill her.
There are now marches against domestic violence. Some victims and some survivors are going to be on the march, but the vast majority would be cowering in their homes in fear because if they should only step out, the wrath of the abuser would descend on them.
Just for the record, men are also abused, but the society does not set much store by this. They often believe that a woman beating the daylights out of a man is the lesser of the evils. In fact, many women support such situations. They would say that the abusive woman is making up for their peers who are being abused.
There is another situation that is not helping the cause. People could get into trouble for getting involved in a dispute between two people. An outsider may see a man beating a woman and would intervene. He may even punch the abuser, but he could end up in court. That is why people don’t actually get involved in ‘husband and wife’ story. Yet I wish things did not have to reach that stage. For every woman killed, the country loses a generation.

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