Wife Beating, a Devil’s Habit
Wife Beating is rampant, universal, and an odious trait. It knows no barriers of nationality, color or race. Males of all types practice it overtly or covertly to a lesser or greater degree.
An old sage in Sanskrit Says, “A dog, a serpent and a woman merits beating”. That shows the practice of wife beating in abundance during that era. In some countries of Africa and Asia it has become part of culture and perpetuated in the name of tradition.
Yet there is also a Sanskrit saying, “Wherever women are worshipped, there the Gods play”. We have also dignified women as “Madonna and World-mother.” [Mata Jagadamba.] Men have also supported women’s rights movements, and the famous women’s liberation movements. Few years ago we celebrated a special Year of the Women on the international level with great honor and respect. We do it every year nowadays and to our good understandings. For a moment we think as if the time of wife beating has come to an end.
“A WOMAN is a Mother, a sister and a daughter and above all the BETTER-HALF and in all senses A DEAR ONE and a respected one- not to be accused, abused, teased or played about.” The present educated and social minded generation thinks so.
So it is utterly paradoxical to respect women on one hand and support beating them especially in the stage of a wife on the other hand. At one side, we advocate that beating is meant for a wife and we forget that she is also a mother to a child, which is one of us. We reckon the fact that “A hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world.” Aren’t we going wrong some way or the other to understand the true status of a woman in a proper sense?
We consider our wives to be our true “life-partners or better halves” and yet we go to the extent of blasting them and even to harm them physically. Are we fair really and to what extent? No…Not in the present day DEMOCRATIC world where women have proved their intellectual achievements to a recognized standard.Therefore it is clearly evident that wife-beating is a shameful and unpardonable act and it should be condemned fully and totally without any lame excuses.
At all events whatever the contradictions may be –a woman is a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, an aunt – a mother-in-law and a friend and none of her role is to be de-graded. She deserves respects in all the stages.
That many women don’t resist or complain about the men’s brutality: that many women don’t report to the police and imprison the men or they just to their generous nature don’t push them to the court and demand for huge damages—should not be the grounds to defend and persist wife-beating. At most of the events women are generous but that should never be misused.
Yet the problems should be faced without any guilt complex, causes should be analyzed with open mind and wife beating should be forgotten, and forgiven, and the world be kept at bay, with the shameful practice be banished. Women should be considered as persons with sense of feeling similar to that of men.Their generosity and weakness should never be allowed to be mis-used as such.
Many defenders of wife beating have raised showing that the practice is no more a secret: therefore let us also accept the fact that it is a slur on the good name of our society and the civilization, let us also accept that there are valid causes of wife-beating. These causes may be curable or incurable only through separation or divorce.
Why does a husband beat his wife? He may be giving vent to his innate agression, he may be working over his vocational frustrations, he may be having his extra marital affair secretly; he might be jealous of his wife, he might be defending culture and tradition or he may be a sadomasochist or a grown up child. He may be endeavoring to prove his personal ego more as a MAN…In all efforts; he tries to maintain the survival of his superiority over a woman.
All these and many more causes, some valid and others plain silly, don’t validate wife beating [either in the past or in the future]. None of these causes are beyond repair, and ONE MAY JOLLY WELL BEAT A DRUM RATHER THAN BEAT A WIFE. Perhaps this is the best advice to be given to the husband who is used to wife beating and who considers himself as a true HE-MAN by doing so.
Of all the defenders, poorest are those who hide behind the curtains of culture and tradition. I am sure that they are perfectly fit and healthy, mature and economically capable of a number of wives. They may be also very much capable of staying single.Those that hide this malpractice under culture and tradition has no other valid excuses at all. At the same time their support of tradition and culture is purely hypocritical.
Why do they dance like hippos in discos? Why do they abandon their traditional rural home and settle in cities? Why abandon open air toilets of their forefather’s era and settle in modern toilets? Why do they put on modern clothes instead of traditional dresses? Why do they use dinning tables and spoons while eating instead of eating on the ground with dirty hands? Why to use air-conditioned offices, t.v. motor-cars, telephones? Oh-why, why, why?
If one can metamorphose so easily in the name of progress and modernism, why not do the same with the wife beating? Why not consider wife beating as archaic, as animal skin dress, or walking into your office with a spear and shield instead of a handbag? When we have disregarded most of the primitive habits, why then hesitate to give away the device of wife beating?
The Traditionalists want to live the life as untraditional but wish to maintain traditional wife beating which is no way beneficial and welcomed in the modern society where a woman has secured a respectable place. In no uncertain terms therefore I would advocate a change in outlook on the part of the husbands who would prove their malignances and civility through channels other than beating. Frank and free discussions –physically restrained…. planning and sharing activities, forget and forgive attitudes and the open-hearted love are some of the suggestion which can work.
A husband at all events should remember that a wife, even though purchased at some events, is a human being with feelings, knowledge, maturity and understanding, capable of making a home out of a house, and a man from a male being. She has a potential of creating a heaven out of hell, through maintaining a cheerful home and family health. She can as well grow a seedling of peace during the time of gross disturbances.
After all she is a mother of a child who was he when he was borned to a mother who is a woman of all senses and dually respected by him. No world has ever survived in the absence of a woman who is a number one human being and the basement of the population. The evil part of a woman is a human nature. No man has ever proved to be absolutely fair.
It is high time we should not encourage the old device of wife beating which is nothing but the weakness of a male who has no other way to calm down his anger under the tense situation. So, stop wife beating as soon as humanly possible.
Still if you can’t do without beating at all just beat a drum or a steel vessel and cool down. OR JUST BEAT THE RESTING TORTOISE! Nobody would complain!
Wife in all respects deserves love, respect and democratic atmosphere. She has a democratically right for a peaceful survival. She is an equal partner in the married life and should be respected in all senses. She is the entire basement of the family structure. No religious ceremonies are performed in the absence of a wife. No family could prosper in her absence. No love persists without her involvement.
Then why to have such a grudge and impartiality with a par importance WHY? WHY?
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