In what may be regarded as one of the landmark changes in human history, women are beginning to wield the big stick in the domestic arena, and turning it against the men. With specific cases, Adetutu Audu writes on a ‘revolutionary’ trend that seems to be putting some men at the receiving end of domestic violence.
Emmanuel Osuya, 55, a retired civil servant, recently asked a Customary Court in Igando, Lagos, to dissolve his 32-year-old marriage over allegations of excessive beating from his wife.
Osuya stunned the court and all audience seated April this year, when he told the judge that his wife, Abigeal Osuya, 50, has turned him into a punching bag, beating him up at the slightest provocation.
According to Mr. Osuya, his life had become threatened on account of his wife’s aggressive and violent nature: “My wife wants to kill me; she beats me almost every day with dangerous weapons. On three occasions, she actually broke my leg, preventing me from going out for days.”
He therefore appealed to the court to dissolve the marriage, arguing that “I am no longer interested in the marriage, I don’t want to die now; more so that I am out of love.”
In a similar case, a 43-year-old man, Edeh Godwin, last month urged an Ado-Ekiti Customary Court to dissolve his 16-year-old marriage to his wife, Ebere over alleged threats to his life, frequent fighting and destruction of property.
Godwin, a resident of No. 3, Eyin-Odi Market, Odo-Ado, Ado-Ekiti, told the court how on a certain day, he came back from work and met his two wives fighting.
He said while trying to separate both of them, Ebere brought a plank and hit him on the head.
On another occasion, the father of three said he came back from work and Ebere hit him with a spanner on his back.
He claimed that she had also become fond of saying peace will never reign in their house until both of them die. He added that this was what led him into marrying another wife.
Just last week, the photograph of a man whose wife poured hot water on went viral on the social media. His offence? He was caught sleeping with his mother-in law (his wife’s mother).
While many may be quick to argue that the husband indeed took his randiness way too far, the fact remains that it was a most gruesome picture and the wife took the law into her own hands, perpetrating a most gruesome violence on her husband in the process.
Amazingly, domestic violence or abuse had always been perceived as a one-way traffic, with the arrow pointing always at the men. But the situation seems to be changing rapidly, as numerous other cases of battered men abound.
Thomas Ebi (not real name) for instance had to walk out of his five-year-old marriage when he could no longer stand the battering from his wife. According to him, his wife, Betty used to regularly scream at him and hit him. ‘But when it got to a level where I needed stitches to stop the bleeding on my head after she had attacked me with a knife while drunk, I realised I had to leave. I told my colleagues at work that I had scratched myself during the night due to a change in shaving powder – but actually it was my wife who did it, but I couldn’t tell them that,’ he explained.
In the case of Jide, he’d probably wish he never accepted his friends’ advice to try out another woman after years of childless marriage. He’d been married to his wife for 10 years without a child and eventually succumbed to the advice to impregnate another woman. Unfortunately, he also contracted a sexually transmitted disease, which he passed to his wife. Hell was let loose when his wife found out and Jide got the beating of his life from his enraged wife. Stories had it that it took the intervention of neighbours to free Jide from his wife’s claws.
Narrating his own experience, another victim of husband battery, Dele Onigbanjo, said ‘After Lizzy (his wife) had threatened me with a knife on more than one occasion and I had successfully ducked her missiles, she finally got her aim right one morning hitting me with a bowl, which landed just one centimeter from my eye. I turned up for work that morning with blood-stained clothing and had to explain my fragile situation.”
40-year-old businessman, Omotayo Ogunbola also recently begged an Igando Customary Court to dissolve his 12-year-old marriage over alleged threat to his life by his wife, Alaba.
He told the court that his wife always attacked him with dangerous weapons, and even threatened severally to terminate his life brandishing various weapons.
“My wife wants to kill me, she always stabs me with sharp objects and tells me that she will only be satisfied if I die, rather than remain on the surface of the earth,” Ogunbola said.
The petitioner described his wife as a troublesome fellow and a fighter. “My wife always fights me in the house and she also comes to my office to fight me; on two occasions, she has even written letters to my company, asking them to sack me and that I am an irresponsible man,” he said.
Ogunbola thus reiterated his plea to the court to dissolve the marriage, saying he was no longer in love and does not want to die young.
Another gentleman, John Solomon complained of his wife’s unfaithfulness, constant threat of violence and deliberate damage of his social life. “At first, she discouraged me from seeing old friends, especially female friends. She threatened to use violence against them. She would flirt with my friends, but then tell me that they were trying to seduce her behind my back. This left me feeling distrustful of my friends. Later on, I found out that she had been telling them that they shouldn’t come round because I was insanely jealous. All this had the effect of damaging my social network.”
Sex denial as a weapon
And the assault extends even to the emotional, with revelations emerging that many wives are now employing sexual deprivation as a means of punishing their spouses.
In July this year, Akure-based Segun Owonifari, went to court to seek the dissolution of his 21-year-old marriage to his wife, Celina, over her persistent refusal to avail him of sex and a perpetual nagging habit.
Owonifari claimed that his wife had become a trouble maker, and that he could no longer trust her due to her cunning ways.
Last July, 75-year-old Kayode Oguntuase also appealed to an Ado-Ekiti Customary Court to dissolve his 26-year-old marriage over claims of sexual starvation.
Aside that, Oguntuase also told the court that his 53-year-old wife, Felicia, was having extra-marital affairs. He also said she was stubborn, a thief, a threat to his life and does not care for him, adding that she also hates been corrected.
As for Bolaji Ebietomiye, during the eight years he was married, he only had sex with his wife on her terms. “We only ever had sex on her terms. And each time, she would call it off before I came. I would be so frustrated, I would get up and make myself some tea and toast and try to cool off. But she didn’t like me getting up either; I was just meant to stay there and hold her but do nothing. After eight years, I walked out of the marriage.”
Different strokes for different folks, you may say. For long, domestic violence has been framed and understood exclusively as a women’s issue. While more attention is given to women who are abused by men, men are often overlooked and hardly ever thought of as victims of domestic violence. Incidentally, the reality is that abuse is not always physical, and a lot of men, just like their female counterparts, endure daily emotional, verbal and psychological abuse in silence for years; their self-esteem slowly but gradually eroding away. Eventually, they become isolated from those around them.
Not an African thing
Just like domestic violence against women, violence against men may constitute a crime, but laws vary across jurisdictions. Socio-cultural norms regarding the treatment of men by women, and women by men also differ, depending on the geographic region. According to reports, every year, about 3.2 million men in the U.S are the victims of assault by an intimate partner. Most assaults are of a relatively minor nature such as pushing, shoving, slapping or hitting, though a good number are more serious and some even end in homicide.
Bidemi Ogunlade, a marriage counsellor explained that domestic abuse is not limited to violence. An abusive wife or partner may hit, kick, bite, punch, spit, throw things, or destroy your possessions. To make up for any difference in strength, she may attack you while you are asleep or otherwise catch you by surprise. She may also use a weapon, such as a gun or knife; or strike you with an object; or abuse or threaten your children. Your spouse or partner may also try to control how you spend money, where you go or what you wear; act jealously or be possessive or constantly accuse you of being unfaithful. She may also verbally abuse you, belittle you, or humiliate you in front of friends, colleagues, or family, or on social media sites.
She added that women who abuse men are not much different from their male counterparts who abuse women. An abused man, she said faces a shortage of resources, skepticism from police, and major legal obstacles, especially when it comes to gaining custody of his children from an abusive mother.
“Our culture still clings to narrow definitions of gender. Young boys are taught not to express their emotions, but to ‘suck it up’ and ‘be a man.’ To this end, men may feel discouraged to talk about what is going on in their personal lives, or feel like no one will believe them,’ she pointed out.
Most shelters are women-focused – Effah-Chukwuma
Unlike in the western world, majority of shelters and services for domestic violence victims are women-focused and therefore wholly designed for women.
Dr. Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, a sociologist and Founder/Executive Director of Project Alert on Violence Against Women is a women’s rights activist, who is breaking the silence surrounding domestic violence in Nigeria. She has also received several awards and recognitions for her doggedness and untiring efforts in the women’s rights crusade. Speaking to The Nation on Sunday on why most shelters are women-focused, Effah-Chukwuma said every organisation has its focus.
According to her, Project Alert on Violence Against Women focuses mainly on women and young girls and thus can not deviate.
‘We came into existence in January 1999 because we identified the need for an organisation to try and tackle the problem of violence against women which is very prevalent in our society. Starting with violence in the home (domestic violence), to violence in the public space (schools, places of worship, work places among others), we set up the first shelter for abused women in Nigeria and it is known as Sophia’s Place. It is only for women and girls.’ She noted.
Is it that there are no abused men? We asked.
Men abuse, Effah-Chukwuma explained is not as prevalent as women abuse. ‘No studies have established that. That is however not to say that men don’t suffer abuse at the hands of women. Most times, men identify nagging as the abuse they get from women; and then few report cases of physical assault such as one that I saw in the social media yesterday of a woman who poured her husband hot water for sleeping with her own mother.
Dr. Obi Kanu, a psychologist told The Nation on Sunday that men abuse is on the rise because a lot of today’s women are now in men’s world. In a society where the roles of men and women are becoming increasingly blurred, female-on-male domestic violence will be on the rise.
‘Women, these days earn and compete with much aggression as their male colleagues. Money and infidelity seem the two biggest external triggers for male domestic violence.’ He disclosed.
Why men don’t report physical abuse
United Kingdom-based campaign group Parity, claims that assaults by wives and girlfriends are often ignored by police and media. Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police, see their attackers go free and have far fewer refuges to flee to than women, says a study by the men’s rights campaign group Parity. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states that “Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture.”
Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men make up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year. Figures suggest that as many as one in three victims of domestic violence are male. However, men are often reluctant to report abuses by women because they feel embarrassed, or fear that they won’t be believed, or worse, that the police will assume that since they are male, they are the perpetrators of the violence and not the victim. Whereas women who experience domestic violence are openly encouraged to report it to the authorities, it has been argued that men who experience such violence often encounter pressure against reporting, with those that do, facing social stigma regarding their perceived lack of machismo and other denigrations of their masculinity.
