http://www.thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=332307&catid=39
The weaker sex? ; Sudha Palit
Women are generally portrayed as being victims of all
kinds of ill-treatment and exploitation by men. This is easy to believe
because they are smaller in size than males. But size can be a deceptive
measure by which to judge a woman’s overall power.
Medical
statistics show that most of the deaths of new-born babies are among
males. So, by and large, females seem to have a stronger constitution at
birth. Also, women in general have a longer life span than men, as they
are less likely to succumb to fatal diseases like heart attacks, except
at a ripe old age. Even so, during their prime years, men are known to
be physically stronger than women. And unleashed physical strength can
cause a lot of damage.
For many years, women have been depicted as
the victimised species because of their dominance by males. “Wife
battering” and similar terms have been widely used in cases relating to
domestic violence. Women who have been subjected to this kind of
treatment evoke much sympathy, and special courts are set up to deal
with cases like theirs. Movies inspired by such real- life cases have
also been made.
But another kind of picture is now emerging.
Husbands are not always the offending parties. More and more cases are
now coming to light where men are at the receiving end of the
persecutory tactics used by their domineering wives. Misogynists might
like to give credence to the saying that “marriage is a contract where a
man loses his bachelor’s degree and a woman gains her master’s”. Quite
recently a case was reported in the newspapers of a man committing
suicide because of the constant bickering in his marriage, caused by a
nagging and tyrannical wife. When he could not stand the stress any
longer, he decided to end it all. Harassed husbands feel it is high time
to do something to alleviate the distress that they have been silently
suffering at the hands of their marriage partners.
Organisations are
now being formed to address such issues, in Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) a
full-fledged organisation called Meri biwi se bachao (save me from my
wife) has been formed. The organisation was founded in this steel city
five years ago and also has branches in nearby areas. Here husbands come
to air their marital grievances, and attempts are made to find
solutions to their grievances.
It has been found that when a man is
the main earning member of the family, the wife sometimes tries to get
hold of the property that he has acquired through hard work. In the last
few years, there have been quite a few cases of men opting for
voluntary retirement under the voluntary retirement scheme. Some wives
feel aggrieved that they have not had a say in the amount of their
husbands’ gratuity and provident fund, and they create no end of trouble
for their partners in this context. The men prefer to keep quiet about
such matters as they feel that their ego is threatened.
If the money
from the VRS is put into a joint account, some wives feel free to draw
out what they need for their personal use without informing their
husbands. Women sometimes even use their children to emotionally
blackmail their husbands so that they give in to their demands. In
divorce cases, men are often at their ex-wives’ mercy when it comes to
parting with property or money in a divorce settlement. Some women have
no compunction in bleeding their husbands white.
But female
expertise is not confined to material gains. Even physically they can
cause damage to their husbands where it really matters. Some years ago, a
woman by the name of Lorena Bobbit made headlines when she castrated
her husband with a sharp knife. She even had a couple of imitators who
tried the same kind of amputation on their errant husbands, and the
phrase, “So and so did a Bobbit on her husband,” came into usage.
Since
women have been clamouring for equality with men, cases of marital
injustice should be treated on an equal par for both men and women. The
fair sex cannot expect to get away lightly in cases where they are
clearly the offending party.
