Why it is ‘OK’ to beat your woman/wife

IT’S NOT OKAY!

A friend posted “Why it is ‘OK’ to beat your woman/wife” on Facebook. I looked at it and wondered, ‘have we ever asked ourselves this question and understood it? Dug dip down to its core and uprooted it for study and examination purposes?’

“Why is it OK to beat your woman/wife?”

I know the notion of why should we even ask such questions when someone is dying from a beating so terrible, and another filing for divorce because the man couldn’t control himself. Why should we waste our brain power thinking about such things, abuse is abuse and should be condemned, and those who do it should die at the stake.

OHH! I am for more than just condemning and staking. Let them hang by the balls, while being lashed at Roman soldiers style to Jesus.

Though, we need to first understand the ‘WHY’. What causes such behaviour before we raid ourselves of human resource. I think we can end it if we find the root causes.

Let us look at

• People’s backgrounds.  We all grew/grow up seeing different things. Our first examples of how to relate with others were not the same. Some people had the best examples to imitate, while others the worst. They can’t even blame their parents because that is what them – the parents also grew up seeing. Now it has become a vicious circle of broken ribs and bruised faces in homes, broken esteems and self-hate.  This is all because people know no other way.
• Then there are mental health problems. This is a big one. Our African society doesn’t believe in such things. If you dare mention that you are losing control of your own thoughts and hearing things; you are demon processed, your aunties from the village are calling you back to work on the family ‘airs’ – witchcraft. As a Christian, I believe many of these are true, but also believe that people need to be paid attention to and offered the help they need when this happens, not discarded to their vices. I have noticed that this leads to many fearing being discarded, and end up pretending that all is well in public and unleashing their rage at home.
• Insecurity is another one. The fear that the loved one might leave them or that they are cheating. Or any other reasons African tradition society permitted as reasons for beating women. These are insecurities that need to be checked. No one has that kind of permission to your body other than God even you can’t harm yourself, it is His temple, His masterpiece.
• Society! ‘You have to beat (discipline) her to show her that you love her!’ Discipline? This is the worst one. And the way society applauds such a man who does so, a huh! I know a man in my village who got rewarded with a goat for ‘disciplining’ his wife by his parents in law. My anger.
• Religion. I can’t even explain the hypocrisy of men of ‘God’, who interpret the Bible – this is what I know – for others to keep them slaved to their own interpretation that doesn’t portray God’s love.
• Then the people who stay after being beaten. ‘What do you be thinking?’ That your abuser will change? That you will work at changing them, are you God? People who stay in domestic violent marriages are the main enforcer of this evil deed. They display the wrong example to themselves, their children, their friends and relatives ”Even so-and-so stayed, so I will stay too. After all, he is my husband.” God have mercy on you all, for dragging the rest of us in this mud – Gas-lighting effects just.

Gas-lighting is a tactic of behaviour in which a person or entity, to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn’t realize how much they’ve been brainwashed. In the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.

All the mentioned above, can be undone. It requires a strong generation of men and women who are not one-sided but to look at both sides and aim to find solutions. Accountability spaces are the best remedy.

We have a lot of unlearning and learn to do. As millennials and now Gen Zs who are disruptive, let’s disrupt domestic violence and make the future better for us and our children with great examples to follow. The choice is ours to decide to have good relationships

Patricia Kahill

Patricia Kahill is a multipotentialite Christian entrepreneur, Content Marketing Coach and founder of the Content Marketing agency, Kahill Insights that helps business owners create engaging and interactive content items for digital platforms with a focus on returning a desired outcome. Patricia was the producer of SlamDunk Basketball Talk a show on House of Talent online TV, a former fellow at Harvest Institute for leadership and now an assessor there, and an alumnus of the YELP class of 2017. A member of the BNI Integrity chapter and African Women Entrepreneur Cooperative. She is driven by passion and curiosity, been taking every opportunity that has been given to her with an ambition of stamping her footprint on the world.