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Sunday, December 30, 2007

Breaking the Circle of Violence in the Home










Don’t Provoke! -Don’t Hit!

What happens between the time of the wedding when everybody is full of smiles, and later when the police are called? What could possibly go so wrong? This is the question of the ages. The only thing that I can conclude for certain is that both partners are responsible for the success and happiness of their marriage, and both are responsible for the downfall and failure. Only the two partners, or combatants, can really know the full story, and even they will most likely be bewildered.

A person’s judgement as to their choice of partner is the major factor. So, where the “injured” party contends that they have done everything by the book to make a go of it, perhaps their only contribution to the disaster was simply their choice of partner.

In the event of forced marriages there should be no surprise when later things turn sour. There are so many stories of the bride or groom who change their minds on the wedding day, but who are forced to go through with it for their family to save face. (Not to mention that there are all those sandwiches already made). There is clearly a need for enlightenment to allow for the whole thing to be called off, even at such a late date. After all, the alternative is a known quantity, and a very sad statistic.

My advice to my fellow men is not to hit their wife/significant other, because the only thing that the public gets to see are the bruises. If there was provocation, we don’t get to see that. You might have been the long- suffering, hen-pecked to death, quiet gentleman. But when the going gets too tough, go out for a pack of cigarettes, whether you smoke or not. If it is a case of someone else trying to get you to ruin your life, do not cooperate! Just take the pain like a man, because our culture has arrived at the point where we have zero tolerance for the wife-beater.

Well, do men hate women? If so, in those cases that can be so described as such, where does such hatred come from? Let’s look at some extreme examples.

Case No. 1.

As a young boy, Stanley, (not his real name) was witness to a row between his mother and father where his mother told his father, (who Stanley adored) to get out of the house (that his father built with his own hands) for reasons that were never made clear. Thereafter, as his mother tried to stabilize her life Stanley had to endure a parade of “uncles” going in and out of his house. So Stanley grew up with a gigantic chip on his shoulder that he was never able to confront his mother over. But he developed a suspicion of all women, and mostly he was angry with women because if his mother behaved in that manner, surely all women were like that.

So, in his dealing with women he holds a lot of pent-up anger and hostility. He is likely to be the one to get drunk on a Saturday night and explode at home over the slightest triviality. Stanley needs major and urgent help!

Case No. 2.

Albert, (not his real name) is a conservative and shy person. He is a hard worker, a pillar of the community, very naïve in many ways, but a real family man. What he needs to round out his life is the love of a good woman, but unfortunately Albert is a bad judge of character. Consequently he doesn’t see the cunning, scheming Jezebel coming for him. She sees him as an easy mark to rip off. They marry and after a suitable “honeymoon” period she proceeds to turn his life upside down through provocation, goading him to hit her so that she could fire up her planned program, called “Operation Strip-him-clean”. When he finally hit her in the blind rage that she authored he stood to lose everything. His job, civic standing, reputation, money, house, his whole way of life. She stood to gain it all, which was the very objective. This is where it becomes very dangerous because some men might reason that since they were ruined anyway, what do they have to lose. “In for a penny, in for a pound”. What could happen next is likely to be serious mayhem.

Violence in the home is not just men against women. I am concerned about all forms, such as:
- women to men; there are many women who are violent aggressors. These people might have borne witness to maltreatment of their mothers by their fathers.
- women to women, in the case of lesbian couples;
- men to men, in the case of homosexual couples. In both these scenarios the couples might even be legally married.
- Siblings to siblings. Children need to be taught early about anger management.
- Parents against children. When does a physical response cross the line from discipline and become abuse?
- Children against parents. This might otherwise be called Elder abuse. A recent example was the case of a daughter who took her 92 year-old mother into the city and left her holding on to a railing at the side of the road, allegedly quite deliberately, and never to return.
- And then there is care-giver abuse of children or the very elderly.

Violence in the home in many cases has to be unlearned. It can be the result of custom: abused as a child, abuser as an adult. (Hence the circle of violence.) The saddest sight is that of a man beating his son when the son is just like his dad. I say the man should simply go beat himself up.

In summary, to those people who quite rightly call for the cessation of violence against women, I agree, but I ask how soon do we start the process? To everybody else I suggest a one-size fits all approach. That is, Don’t Provoke! Don’t Hit! I repeat, Don’t Provoke! Don’t Hit! Try anger management instead. Admittedly it will not be easy, but we cannot go through life beating up everybody. A simple, unisex, easy-to-live by, very easy slogan to remember: Don’t Provoke! Don’t Hit!

Copyright © 2007 Eugene Carmichael