The Malta Independent on Sunday
Accepting the unacceptable
Believes that women who find themselves in a hostile marriage should stop fantasising that it will change but leave at the first opportunity
It used to mystify me but it doesn’t anymore as each day I come closer to understanding just a little bit more about human nature and the human condition. I am not going to speak about domestic violence and men. We know there are also men who experience domestic violence. But perhaps men know how to handle it better. I want to concentrate on women whose marriages become hell and there have been several cases recently. The most horrendous was the woman whose partner, a Seychellois, put her in a cave and tried to kill her. Why wasn’t he sent packing to his island home in the Indian Ocean? And how on earth did he manage to get a visa to live here anyway?
Some marriages may not be hell but purgatory. But the question we continually ask is: Why do these women stay on in such marriages? Why don’t they grab their children and dash out?
Why don’t they turn their back and walk or run away from unbearable situations?
Well, one reason which is evident to all of us is that they are afraid of their violent husband and they are even more afraid that their children will get hurt. They have resigned themselves to their ‘place’ in life and an atti- tude of ‘grin and bear it.’ This in situations when a woman should be clawing her way out, fighting and finding an alternative environment for herself and her children.
Why do so many women have the Little Match Girl syndrome? I never understood the Little Match Girl either. I always questioned her passivity. Why didn’t she get herself some other job to do? Selling boxes of matches out in the snow always struck me as being totally impractical. Couldn’t she have delivered papers perhaps or served in a grocery store? Or gone to work with some rich family as a maid. There she was freezing and yet going about in a trance waiting for someone to give her some food rather than pulling herself together and looking at better options.
Instead the poor little matchseller sat sadly beside the fountain. Her ragged dress and worn shawl did not keep out the cold and she tried to keep her bare feet from touching the frozen ground. And if she hadn’t sold at least one box of matches in a day she was too frightened to return home, for her father would be angry. It wouldn’t be much warmer anyway, in the draughty attic where she lived. And let us not ask why her father expected his daughter to work. What was he doing all day long? Was he ill? And then one day the inevitable hap- pened. The little girl’s lifeless body was found near the fountain.
“Poor little thing!” exclaimed the passersby. “She was trying to keep warm!”
But such is the fate of women who ‘grin and bear it’ when they are in situations which are unacceptable. Yes, so many of us accept the unacceptable. Think of the many women you know who have found themselves in an environment which is unhealthy, in a destructive relationship but yet stay on for years and years.
And yet we all need people who warm us, who endorse and exalt us otherwise we freeze.
But these women get more and more isolated. Don’t they realize that a husband who does not support you is not worth your time. This may be harsh but it is true. So these women live only a little of their life for toxic husbands freeze out all feelings, all thoughts and all hope. And yet these women stay on. Some fantasise and imagine that one day things will be otherwise.
Fantasy is a good thing as long as it is used as a vehicle that takes us into action. I knew girls in Mauritius who spent years dreaming of marrying a Frenchman perhaps or a Swiss who would swish them away from their poverty and perhaps a husband who beat them. They dreamt of having a kitchen with helpless. When the marriage works out all well and good, as many do, but when there are hostile conditions in the home with little chance of their changing, a woman needs another venue, another environment to thrive. Coldness spells the end of any relationship and violence kills it. As soon as one becomes frozen in feeling, thinking or action, relationship is no longer possible.
Love energizes. When emotional conditions in a relationship are positive then one can bear many things including poverty and sickness. But when love is killed off there is a loss of energy.
But because some women tend to accept the unacceptable as each day passes they persuade themselves that they can stand it. Fear immobilizes them. The fear of the unknown. What will they do? Where will they go? Who is going to feed them and their children? So “I will look the other way…” They are in denial… sometimes for a lifetime and their life becomes one of complacency and numbness. They push decisions to a mythical future. They remain knockkneed and green-gilled with fear at the thought of an alternative environment and become immobile, catatonic and physically unable to act.
In the case of the Little Match Girl she dreamt of her grandmother who would take her away. Where there is helplessness, where there is no empowerment, then we think that our salvation lies with other people, whereas we always have the power to save ourselves.
The Domesic Violence paper which has been in the making for so long will certainly help those unfortunate human beings who find themselves in these situations. Of course it will. However, as we know from everything else too, laws cannot always be enforced. It is each individual who must empower herself and feel in charge of her life and destiny. This comes from education and giving women self-esteem; enough belief in themselves that when destiny lands them in such situations they can walk away… but without walking from the frying pan into the fire…from a violent husband to a pimp for example.
So many, and not just women, have this false idea that they have to take abuse from someone they love. I say forgiveness, although somewhat over-rated is enough but you don’t have to stay. Empower yourself and get away from the situation. Staying on in hell is not going to lead you to heaven no matter what the priest may tell you, as he did the woman in Gozo.