Sharing an anonymous comment.

This victim of domestic violence wants to to stay married to the violent husband because she fears (amongst other things) that their child, a girl child being raised without her father would have ‘no values’.

This desire to stay married and make it work is extremely common – and is easy to understand. Starting afresh would involve going to the court for divorce, custody and maintenance/alimony/child support. It would involve struggling for financial support and income. (How much support can she expect from a society that views the crime as a family matter?)

It would involve coping everyday with blame from family and society, for not ‘reforming’ the abuser and saving her marriage.

It can’t be easy. One shouldn’t have to make such decisions. It’s unfair. But is living with a violent man easier?

Once the mind is made up, once the idea of divorce and single parenting begins to be accepted, once some financial stability is achieved, once the emotional abuse is recognised and confidence found again (very slowly) – maybe then the survivor would be able to see that there was no choice – on one side there was a life with hope and possibilities, on the other side – never ending and escalating violence, emotional abuse and resulting destruction of confidence and self worth.  

What makes women so willing to go back to where there is certainty of misery, violence, fear and pain? Why is the alternative found so much worse than all of the above? 

Below is the comment. What advice would you give to the email writer? 

My sister’s marriage is 12 year old and she has a Daughter 11 years old. One day they (25 people) came to our house and started shouting outside our home insulting my parents and my sister and they said “Your daughter is lying on the road, bring her back.” And we reached there but she was not there, then we reached to her home it was locked from outside. I saw my sister was on the first floor and she was locked and she was crying badly with her daughter. We understood that she had been beaten very badly, but since this was a family matter I didn’t do anything like calling the  police. As I was afraid of their attitude to hurt my sister, so I brought my sister and her daughter to our home.

One day after that her daughter started crying that she wanted to see her father and my father took her to my sister’s in laws’ home. They refused to keep her and they threw her with her luggage like we throw garbage in the bin… speaking very rudely to the girl child.

They are so bad. Her Husband has refused to pay her daughter’s school fees, now it is more than six month that we are taking care of both my sister and my niece but he never came to take them. Whenever we tried to contact him he says he is out of station, he refused to speak to us.

Please advice. My sister doesn’t want to break her marriage. She has a thinking that a daughter without a father has no value and her father has misused my sister for 12 years.

We are also planning to file a police complaint against him but before that I want to know the pros and cons of taking a legal steps and want to know my sister’s rights as a wife for 12 years. Please advice what we can do and what we should do to resolve this issue as he is not willing to listen to us…

Anyone please suggest what to do. This is real life matter and everyone’s attention is a must as what is my sister’s life at the age of 40 + with a daughter old 11 years and her husband is very rude abusive and beat her and doesn’t even pay her daughter’s school fees.

Thanks.

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Tagged: Divorce is not an option, Divorce procedures, Equal rights in Marital property, Family Matters, Get Married-Stay Married, Married Indian Daughters, Staying married for child's sake, Tolerance to Violence, Victims of domestic violence