Stop Domestic Abuse

Who loves well, punishes well

This is important. Domestic abuse should be condemned in strong words. It is an epidemic. According to one study only 1% of all domestic abuse is reported to the police. The reasons behind this underreporting could be that either people want to maintain the façade of pride and honor of their families, or they become so habitual that they consider it a normal behavior

Before I started writing this post, I used to think domestic abuse meant abusing domestic animals. I had read about them in primary school, and every year from 1st to 5th standard, I always got full marks in exams for the essay “The Cow” until it was replaced with “Independence Day” in middle school. That was the time when my percentage dropped drastically. But none of the essays had any mention of abuse. Thus to research this topic, my first step was to find out the definitions of the words domestic and abuse.

Domestic: of or pertaining to the home, the household, household affairs, or the family: domestic pleasures
Abuse: to use wrongly or improperly; misuse: to abuse one's authority.

Gosh, I was completely off the track. Really, English is such a confusing language that, sometimes, what we infer from a word, a phrase or a sentence turns out to be completely opposite of what it means.

At least, now I understand what domestic abuse means, and once again I condemn it in the strongest words. If you want to make this world a better place you have to begin from your own home, because the world is a collection of homes. I urge all of you to stop domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse, as I realize now, means not caring for your home, keeping it dirty, letting the kids mess up things, not mending the broken walls and windows, not fixing the leaking taps, letting mold, fungus, and garbage pile up in the rooms. This is absolutely detestable, unacceptable, and unpardonable.

You should learn to love, care, and respect your home and all the household items including the idols of God, showpieces, kitchenware, appliances, furniture, etc. If your spouse or children misuse any of these, give them a dressing-down or a sound beating to teach them a lesson or two in love and respect. After all, as a master or a mistress of the house, you need to maintain power and control on all your family members, especially on your spouse because the kids will then automatically toe the line.

There are two methods to keep your spouses under your spell or under your thumb. Follow either of these to contain them, retain them, and prevent them from growing wings.

The first method is to buy them expensive gifts and flowers and praise them once or twice a year.

In the second method, you have to always find fault with them, humiliate them, intimidate them, and blame them for all the minor and major mishaps. You may like this method better as it doesn't require you to spend anything.

Follow either of these two means, but the end should be the same—to make sure your spouse and kids are always dependent on you for all their needs and decisions. Never let them realize their strength and potential. Never let them feel happy or content. If you do so, you will lose power and control and won’t be able to stop the abuse of your home or household objects.

In your mission to stop domestic abuse, your family members might be inflicted with physical disabilities or psychological problems, but that is a small price in the larger scheme of things. Family members are mere mortals. When they die, all their problems will be gone with them. On the other hand, you have different fingers—gotcha—this is an old joke, by Jack Handey.

Now seriously, on the other hand, the benefits are extraordinary in a variety of ways. Your kids will depend on you for as long as you want, giving you immense joy and satisfaction, and if they ever get married they will become good spouse-beaters, child-beaters, and better control freaks. Your house and the household objects that you handle with extreme love and care will carry on your legacy for many generations to come.

Here is a lengthy entry in Wikipedia on domestic abuse. I ain’t got no time to go the whole hog. I just skimmed it to find if our great country India was mentioned in it and I wasn't disappointed..

At one place it says, “Unofficial statistics estimate that 97% of Indian women experience violence at some point in their lives.” What rubbish! There seems to be a global conspiracy going on against us. They have deliberately left out the 3% to show us in poor light.

Please excuse my digression and let’s get back to the topic. Forget about Mera Bharat Mahan type of nationalism and regionalism and factionalism for a while, and consider the whole world and its problems as our own, and for the sake of humanity, stop domestic abuse.

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Picture: An illustration from JJ Grandville's Les cent proverbs captioned "Qui aime bien châtie bien" (Who loves well, punishes well), showing a man spanking a child, and another beating his wife (Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)