By Dr. Ranjeet Kaur

“Dr, Ranjeet Kaur is the Vice President of the Sikh Women’s International Organization”

 

Every Punjabi parent has a dream of getting his/her daughter married and the daughter to live happily ever after.

Throughout the world the societal institutions like to view a family unit an arena of love protection and guidance. They have always turned their backs on the issue of family violence (Thormon 1980). However the reality is that the family is the most frequent locus for violence (Gellus 1974) current estimates are that there are as many as 2 million battered women in the United States today (Schecter 1982). 12% of all murders committed in he U.S. today involve husbands and wives. 28% of the U.S. families experience marital violence at some point in time and victims are overwhelmingly the ‘women. (Strauss, Gelles and Steinmetz 1980.

Observations made by one of the physicians working with women in the tri state areas indicated that more than 25% of Punjabi women experience physical abuse. and many more suffer from verbal and emotional abuse. at the hands of their husbands.

The much asked question is why the women remain in this abusive relationship?

Sheltered Life

Researchers studying the battered women have characterized an abused women as being passive, lacking self-esteem and a traditionalist.

An average Punjabi woman has led a sheltered life, she is programmed from early childhood to be obedient to her elders, loyal to her husband and his family and never to discuss her family problems with outsiders, not even with her parents. She is duty bound by society to. endure it all in silence. A good model wife not only is helpless but wouldn’t seek for help from outside, instead she would cover the telltale signs by telling lies, not realizing that this way she is promoting his abusive behavior.

Even educated, well placed professional women would submit to their husband’s oppression. Wife beating in Punjab society in some subtle ways is considered an acceptable behavior. In 18th century wife beating in England was also socially acceptable (Bridge Hill 1984) but this is the 20th century. It is appalling to find similarities in the condition of women in the 20th century Punjab and 18th century England. Because of the belief in traditional family system, complaining about her husband produces fear, guilt and sense of failure in a Punjabi woman. Divorce is beyond the realm of her thinking. She would rather stay married and be abused then be divorced. Women are extremely ‘worried about the social opinion and taboos of divorce. Compounding all this is her fear of losing her husband, her protector and her children. But the real truth in the. majority of the cases.is that she stays in the abusive relationship because she has no viable alternative.

She has no resources in this foreign country to which she can turn for help. She has no financial support.

Unequal Distribution Of Power

The root cause of divorce in most of the families observed was unequal distribution of power with males having the upper hand both physically and financially. Man has access to all resources which are completely denied to the woman. In most cases it is her economic dependency which forces her to stay in the abusive relationship. This is the reason that despite the high incidence of physical and mental abuse in Punjabi women, the divorce rate is extremely low.

One Punjabi woman highlighted her experience as follows:

We were married in India. After marriage we came to the United States. We were happy. We had two children. We had everything. However, things changed after the arrival of my mother-in-law. She constantly complained about my cooking, the way I dressed the way I looked after my children, practically everything I did was wrong. My husband also started complaining that I was not taking good care of my mother-in-law. He wanted me to go out and look for the job and bring money home. He started abusing me, first verbally and then physically. On thing led to another. On the 4th birthday of my son! was served with divorce papers. I was shocked. I had no place to go for help. I had no money to support myself or my children or defend myself legally. With the help of a State Legal Aid I was divorced. I received minimal child support. Now I was a divorced woman with no special skills and no place to go.

The Trauma Of Divorce

Another woman narrated her story as follows:

My husband was an alcoholic and abusive, exceptionally possessive, obsessively suspicious, cruel and selfish. He was an uncaring father and an inconsiderate husband. But my advisors and friends would argue and say, “Well he is good looking, he is from a good family, he is respected in society.”

His is financially stable and is providing food and a roof for you and your children. What more can a woman ask for? Men are like that. They are free spirited. Women should try to understand her man and learn to put up with him.”

It was obvious that my advisors neither did nor wanted to understand the torment I was going through. I divorced him. Learning that I was a divorcee, mary of my women friends changed their attitude towards me. They were suspicious that I might have designs on their husbands.

How to combat the problem To counteract some of the constraints on abused women, the immigrant Punjabi community should develop a programs with the help of volunteers with expertise in the area, which could be previously affected women themselves and the individuals who have commitment to women’s issues. The program should offer support and advocacy as well as a temporary heaven where the women can share their problems and tears and provide emotional support to each other. Means of legal support and other pertinent information should be made available to them so that they can articulate their needs and pursue the options appropriate for their needs to be independent.

The program should make efforts to depict women’s struggle in a positive sense. The counseling to the families involved should focus upon the interpersonal dynamics of husband and wife relationships rather than on the abused women who are usually coerced to keep the family intact.

The group should maintain a vigilant surveillance for domestic violence in the community and help families needing assistance.

Women themselves have to change their attitude about being weak, and vulnerable. Instead they should emphasize their strengths and ability to cope with problems as equals. They must assert themselves and fight for their rights. All women including the housewives should participate in their household and bank accounts and other financial affairs.

Mother’s Role

Punjabi women should teach their daughters to be independent, assertive and not to be passive admirers of masculine muscle power. It should be emphasized that by asserting themselves the girls would not become less loving wives. Role model for girls should be the woman who has the moral courage to fight for her rights who is seriously concerned about the state of women in the society and not a passive subservient woman.

Mothers should treat their sons and daughters alike without preferential treatment for one over the other. Boys should be prepared for responsible manhood and girls for independent womanhood. Girls and boys should be taught the importance of the special place each relationship has. Husband wife relationships need not encroach upon mother and sons relationship although the same son is the husband of another woman.

It is incumbent upon all Punjabi women including those who are happily married to fight for the rights of theirs sisters who are going through the turmoil of domestic violence. Remember, today it is her, tomorrow it could be you.

Open And Honest Communication

The art of open and honest communication between Punjabi husbands and wives is almost nonexistent. The only communication they have is “what husbands say, wives obey and rarely the other way around. They hardly have an open discussion or pleasant argument on a critical subject. There is a great need of developing this art lack of this art is probably the major cause of martial problems.

Conclusion The massage here, however is not that the Punjabi women should collectively abandon the role of being loving wives and caring mothers but rather it is that they should be recognized and appreciated for their sacrifices and contributions in making happy families and loving home* and therefore they should be equal partners.

Article extracted from this publication >>   June 16, 1989