SJ (17^th June, 2012) episode on Domestic violence.

Today’s episode of SJ, covered yet another burning topic `domestic violence’ (the beating and ill-treatment of wife by husband to be precise).   In this episode all the participants were very eloquent and everyone seemed to have taken the bulls by horn.     Like in every situation, in case of domestic violence also, acceptance of being exploited is as much a sin as exploiting.    But it is easier said than done, though undoubtedly the participants who raised their voices (in one case even hand) are brave hearts and should be appreciated for what they have done, but advising people in general to take tough stands, by them or Aamir or any other NGOs,  may not work in every case.     Undoubtedly,  putting up with domestic violence or revolting against it, to a great extent, depends on the financial independent of the female and the kind of support she gets from her family members (parents and siblings) – financial and not just moral and advisory nature.  

Domestic violence can be found mostly in lower strata of the society and also middle class.      Its manifestation, in the most brutal form, can be found in poor families and majority of it can be associated with alcoholism and unemployment.      As rightly pointed out by one of the participants, many of the male resort to domestic violence as the only means of manifestation of their deep rooted frustration emanating from failure in job or business or any other walk of life without realizing that it is the wife who lowering her position and status in life and playing a subordinate role massages the male ego.    This creates a false sense of superiority amongst males,  leading to unreasonable behavior including domestic violence.

Now coming back to solutions, there cannot be any straight jacket ones.    It all depends on various aspects like the educational background, the emotional strength and more specially the financial independency and whether she had children to support or not.   It has been seen in many cases that  the female puts up with domestic violence for the sake of her children and not able to take the bold step of walking over the abusive husband with the hope that the husband may atleast be a responsible father if not husband.      In a country which still is reeling under acute unemployment with even young and qualified females are not getting suitable jobs, it is very difficult and very close to impossible for a uneducated or just educated female, inexperience and middle aged female to get a decent job to support herself and her children.     Everyone can liberally exhibit their sympathy very liberally, but very few will come forward to help.      If she has parents, undoubtedly they will give unconditional support but the same cannot be said about siblings specially if they are married and have their own children to support.       There is no hiding that the world is full of wolfs out to exploit such helpless females and this form of exploitation could be equally torturous, if not more, than the domestic violence.     By saying this, I, am not suggesting that one should put up domestic violence unendingly, but not to get carried away by what `social workers’ or such programmes have to say and take a matured and balanced decision.

As suggested by one of the participants it may not be a bad idea to give properties to daughters rather than washing hands by a onetime wasteful expenditure on marriage and giving dowry in the form of cash/ornaments all of which remain in the custody of the husband and when the wife decides to walk over on the abusive husband, they have to do so empty handed.    Even if she drags the husband to court it may take decades to get a judgement for maintenance.      In some parts of Kerala it is the daughter who inherits the property and giving any part of the property to the son is optional.   

But at the cost of being controversial and unpopular, I really wonder if Domestic violence means violence against female only and is it restricted to only physical violence – what about mental and emotional harassment?   Though in majority of the cases it is the wives who are subjected to domestic violence, I am not ready to accept that husbands are not subject to domestic violence – especially the emotional variety at the hands of wives, with blind and unmindful, misleading and destructive support from mother and siblings – but that could be reserved for another discussion another day.

S. Prabhakar

17^th June, 2012