More muddled-up thinking

The reactions to the horrific account of domestic violence that took place in Birkirkara earlier this month are further proof – if any were needed – that people hold a number of misconceptions about the effects of divorce.

The victim in this case was a 41-year-old woman who had been estranged from her husband for some years. During the compilation of evidence, her mother gave a harrowing description of what her daughter had been through.

Disregarding a court order prohibiting him from approaching his wife, the man entered his mother-in-law’s home where his wife was staying. He threw his wife on the floor and kicked her repeatedly. He plunged a knife into her, while her mother tried desperately to tear him off.

When the victim’s mother managed to grab hold of the knife in the man’s hands, he told her “I’ll cut your hand off”, threw her onto the kitchen table, and left the house after telling her to “die there”.

This incident, which left one woman fighting for her life and her mother injured was the culmination of a series of threats and acts of cruelty, including one where the man in question had his teenage daughter accompany him while buying a revolver which he said he would kill her mother with.

The woman had to flee from a shelter for battered wives in Malta to a home in Gozo because her estranged husband threatened the social workers in the former home, and hung around the place – a menacing presence for his wife and the other women who sought refuge in the shelter.

Reading this account of acts of cruelty and mental torture inflicted over the years, the last thing that comes to my mind is that the availability or the lack of divorce legislation is in any way relevant.

It is clear that the abuse in this and similar cases is inflicted by men (mostly) who want to exert and maintain control over their spouse.

They consider their spouse or partner to be their possession and cannot contemplate a situation where their partner is not under their control.

Should their partner try to break free, they react by inflicting violence and become obsessive in their need to re-establish their dominance.

The way they do this can be very frightening.

I knew a woman who couldn’t put up with constant beatings any more. She moved out of the shared home and into a small rented flat.

On her birthday her partner phoned, telling her he had a small gift for her. She opened the front door to let him in. He took one step into the room, whipped out a can of insect repellent and sprayed it in her face. As she stumbled around blindly he smashed a glass ornament on her head and ripped out huge hanks of hair from the other side.

I saw her a few days after the incident. She had gone back home, petrified that there would be further reprisals for her act of defiance, for daring to leave her man’s sphere of influence.

The availability of divorce legislation would not have made a blind bit of difference to her.

She wasn’t married to her abuser. Even if she had been, the possibility of obtaining a divorce would only have made it possible for her to re-marry.

It would not have prevented her husband from beating her or from seeking her out and wreaking his revenge on her or even her new husband.

The fact remains that violence may be inflicted upon unmarried partners, spouses (whether living together or estranged) and on divorced spouses.

One’s marital status or lack of it does not provide any form of protection from someone hell-bent on beating the living daylights out of you.

As for the argument that at least divorce would allow people to leave their abusive spouse and not live under the same roof any more – it is equally fallacious. The option to leave the matrimonial home already exists. It’s called separation.

There is no law or religion which states that the victim of abuse must continue to live with his or her aggressor and to continue to put up with further abuse.

There are many reasons why victims stay put.

They may be afraid of the aggressor or financially dependent on him.

They may have children and cannot maintain them singlehandedly.

Victims of abuse may lack a support structure and have no idea how they can rebuild their lives, or they may be caught up in a destructive relationship.

There are a thousand and one reasons why people become the victims of violence, and not one of them is even remotely linked to the availability or otherwise of divorce legislation.

The people who rip off furious comments demanding legislative intervention to put a stop to a state of affairs where women are habitually abused, are probably well-meaning.

However, the real problem in these instances is not that there is no escape route from a destructive relationship, but that victims do not take that escape route because they are afraid of their aggressors.

Finding ways of minimising that fear is the only solution to that.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt