The Disobedient Wife

This is a reflection experiment.

When there is a conflict like the one between Palestinians and Israel, it is difficult to have an objective look at the problem, without being emotionally drawn to one side or the other due to whatever factors you may think of.

So, let’s make a reflection experiment, that doesn’t claim to be scientifically correct, but it might be helpful to take a different look at a very complicated and emotionally loaded conflict.

Imagine this. As traditional practice has it in the Middle East, there is a woman and a man arranged to be married by her guardian and his family. Although a free choice approach is nowadays more desired by many of the young people in the region, it is still the custom, and in general people accept it as such. Hence, the groom has agreed to marry this pretty girl for a number of reasons, not only to please his family, and you happen to belong to one of the groom’s best friends since some special events in the past have closely connected you to his family. Unfortunately, the bride is not happy with this turn of fate for her life at all, but has little choice, because her guardian has taken this irrevocable decision and her family is poor, so they haven’t got the means to do anything about it.

After the wedding the woman cries and cries but to no avail, so she begins to rebel against her husband and he thinks it is best to show her who is in control in their marriage from the start, because he is quite content with the arrangement despite the refusal of his wife to submit to him. With time she becomes more rebellious and insists on a divorce, but this is out of question. Her guardian wouldn’t allow it and neither would her husband or his family, who insist that their son should have the upper hand. As time passes the wife tries to increasingly revolt against her husband in order to make his life as miserable as possible and he reacts with physical punishment as she doesn’t want to accept his rules and superiority as a husband. His wife’s behaviour also stresses him out as he had such big hopes for his future, like any young man has when he gets married. But instead the wife makes his life difficult and wouldn’t accept his authority that he thought would automatically happen after they got to know each other better.

As the years pass, the woman refuses to be a good wife to him, because she feels imprisoned and very oppressed in her marriage. She cannot accept the restrictions her husband has placed on her and she feels her life to be a nightmare. His frustration with the situation makes him hit her more and more, bruising her body and face, but she recovers somehow every time and still refuses to keep still. During the years his reaction to her disobedience has turned into constant physical abuse. As a friend of the husband you arranged marriage counselling many times, but the unhappy couple find it difficult to agree on anything, because the husband keeps insisting on his superior authority as a husband, showing off his bruises that his wife was able to inflict on him while he disciplined her. On the other hand, she keeps on reminding him that she had never wanted to marry him and accuses him of serious physical abuse from which she tries to defend herself.

As mentioned before, because of certain circumstances, a divorce is impossible, so the couple is stuck together, and the man becomes madder and more abusive as the wife becomes more disobedient. The violence increases. The wife is even being admitted to hospital many times with serious injuries. You want to try to help your friend, but he doesn’t see any other solution but breaking his wife’s will. You look on as he keeps beating her up with his fists or belt, even stabbing her, locking her in a cupboard, or not feeding her while she keeps kicking and shouting at him, as she is obviously not as strong as him. Meanwhile her guardian and his family keep negotiating, trying to find a solution to the couple’s problems, but neither side is prepared to accept the other side’s arguments, so they keep quarrelling while the marriage misery goes on.

What would you, the best friend, do? Would you keep on watching, supporting your friend’s actions as a loyal ally? Or would you separate them within their marriage and suggest psychotherapy for your friend and some rehabilitation treatment for his wife’s maltreated body? I think no one in their right mind would blame the wife for her marriage misery, even though she might have done things that were unfair to her husband (whom you know as a nice guy)and you feel sorry for them both. Likewise, the justification from the husband to treat her so harshly because she keeps being so difficult is completely unacceptable and lacks the justice she deserves.

As a true friend you must have come to the conclusion that you cannot help the husband and his family by loyally supporting his behaviour. But if you want to prevent one killing the other, you must step in to change that behaviour. For this change to happen you need to tackle the causes of their problems instead of treating only the symptoms. Any expert would tell you that delicate and painful psychotherapy is definitely the only chance for such a difficult relationship - not more violence and hardline positions. Wouldn’t you agree?