Thursday, September 06, 2012

Husband / Wife (Partner) / Child Physical / Verbal Abuse in Marriage.

We hear a lot about this subject. It is a serious problem that takes place to some degree in almost every family home throughout the world. Many times it is subtle. Yet other times it is obvious in one gender and very subtle in the other.

In my first area of a mission (being an industrial area) I found physical violence took place in around 33% of homes. This was plain to hear as we would walk down the street at night time and hear the arguments with crashes and thuds. Not that it was all taking place at once, but continually walking down the same streets to get to where we were working we would eventually hear it.

My second area was very different in that it was a tourist resort; and the people were more involved in making money and their own personal lives. This meant the average couple were barely seeing each other and had no children - it was like there was no family.

In spite of this latter statement there are still subtle signs of one ruling the other. They will profess that there are no arguments and that they get on well. But continued observation demonstrates that is false. Watch an older couple as the wife tells the husband not to do something. He obeys. She may even slap his hand if he doesn't, while still professing they have no violence.

"I may miss the mark, but I don’t think by far, when I say that those who verbally or physically abuse their wives or husbands or those who degrade or demean or exercise unrighteous dominion in a marriage are not keeping the covenant." F. Howard Burton 173 Annual Conference.

I certainly agree with Bro. Burton's statement concerning temple covenants and the wives and husbands. This is not God's way.

Verbal violence usually comes in subtle ways, while physical violence is often more obvious to observe. Some may quote the old saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." This is said to suggest that verbal violence and nagging aren't that bad. But these can have long reaching effects.

For example a woman constantly nagging her husband can drive him to avoid coming home after work. He can get into the habit of going to the hotel for drinks with his work mates. Before long he can have become an alcoholic; and spending the family money on it. Then the wife is nagging even more because of the money situation. This drives him even further away from the family. With this comes low self-esteem and feelings of guilt.

Equally we can have a husband that constantly puts his wife down. She withdraws, and can even turn to legal drugs.

These types of effects are destined to create problems with the children unless the children learn positive things they should be doing from seeing the negative effects of their parents behavior. But the latter is asking a lot of the children.

My observations on a mission and since have shown the sad tale that women subtly or violently rule the home or the husband bashes the wife. Why is this so? It is because people have refused to learn from God's original statement that the man is actually to rule in the home in love. We can water it down to make it different to what the Scriptures say, to appease Women's Libbers. But it won't change reality. The truth still stands.

In looking at this I know that there is a general conception that men are the ones responsible for violence within the home. However claims are made that this is a false perception. The following are some statistics that have been presented to me _

"The federal government itself sponsored a study of "fatal child abuse", something many feminazis don't even comprehend, but which in the real world is nothing short of murder (or, actually, when killing innocent, defenseless children, it's the most cowardly and heinous form of murder imaginable)  http://christianparty.net/nis3.htm

It illustrates that, compared to children in families, children in single-mother households are:

20 times more likely to be fatally abused.
22 times more likely to be seriously abused.
20 times more likely to be moderately abused.
27 times more likely to be emotionally neglected.
50 times more likely to be physically neglected.
55 times more likely to be educationally neglected."

In a report from Canada we find the following _

"Only in the Domestic Violence area did the number of women killed (109) exceed the number of men killed (77). However the feminists ignore the high rate of women killing men in domestic violence cases and act as if only women are the victims. Clearly they are the perpetrators in family killings at a rate not far behind men.
Women who kill can count on getting off completely or getting substantially lower sentences than men in similar situations."

http://www.canlaw.com/rights/whokills.htm

"Violence against family members is something women do at least as often as men! There are dozens of solid scientific studies that reveal a startlingly different picture of family violence than what we usually see in the media. For instance:
Women are three times more likely than men to use weapons in spousal violence.
Women initiate most incidents of spousal violence.
Women commit most child abuse and most elder abuse.
Women hit their male children more frequently and more severely than they hit their female children.
Women commit most child murders and 64% of their victims are male children.
When women murder adults the majority of their victims are men.
Women commit 52% of spousal killings and are convicted of 41% of spousal murders.
Eighty two percent of the general population had their first experience of violence at the hands of women."
Complete scientific citations are included in this report. Leading researchers have validated the statistics used here, "Murray Straus (a sociologist and co-director for the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire) verified the statistics from his report . . .and Richard Gelles of the University of Rhode Island and author of Intimate Violence and other studies, also validated the statistics used by matching it to previous research." Alice Lovejoy, Brown University. "Counter Punch")"

My own limited research has found that women admit to having been the original perpetrators of using objects in every case.

Yet should a man be domineering in running the home? Obviously not. And God doesn't suggest such a thing. God speaks of the woman being part of the man's flesh. God has man loving his wives, not abusing them. But God does have the man as the final decision maker as surely as the bishop must make a final decision when getting counsel from his counselors. A stake president must make a final decision when receiving counsel from the high counselors and his counselors. This is God's way. He knows that you can't have 2 presidents in the church or the home.

It is nothing short of airy-fairy nonsense to talk of 2 people being able to come to the same decision every time, unless both are subservient to Christ in all things and are led by the Spirit in all things.
What do the Scriptures tell us concerning this? _

1 Pet 3:1 "Likewise, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands..."
1 Pet 3:6 "Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord..."
1 Tim 2:12-13 "But I suffer a woman not to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve."
Eph 5:24 "Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in every thing."
Moses 4:22 "To the woman, I, the Lord God, said: I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In sorrow you shall bring forth children, and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you." (See also Gen 3:16)

This is what God has directed to be said. There isn't some other way that God forgot about at the time. It is true that marriage partners are equal in that they have the same value before God. They are equal in that their opinion is important to be heard. But in the end it is the man who is required to seek counsel of the Lord and make the final decision.

When families are run the way that God has directed then these problems of abuse will cease. In the meantime if you are one of those not supporting God's way it is senseless pointing the finger at those with noticeable problems in these areas.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This subject should be addressed more within the church at all levels. Thanks for talking about it. I am a victim of abuse. I grew up when it was alright to spank children, except I did not get spanked, I got beat. There was also mental, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse all by my father. My mother did do some emotional and verbal abuse and some beating. I (a female) and two half siblings (male and female) received the abuse. Two full brothers were favored and were not abused. I would be made to go to a tree and get a branch (switch)to be hit with when the parents could not be bothered to find a belt or hairbrush. I always asked my mother why my father treated me so badly and I was told he did not understand girls and that he thought I would turn out like the half-sister. I tried to tell people about my father but they felt I was making it up for attention. My father had two personnas-one for public and one for private. Everyone thought he was the greatest person and great father. If people really knew what went on they would be shocked. He never hit my mother but was sometimes verbally and emotionally abusive to her. To this day I am in therapy dealing with family dynamics (my two half siblings treat me bad because they think I escaped father's wrath, they are much older and left as soon as they could. The favored sibling treats me bad because he saw my father treat me that way and the other favored sibling was killed in an accident). I have ADD, can't keep employment, have trust issues, struggle with everyday life, etc. Some can move on and deal with life and others can't. We are all wired differently in how we deal with issues and life. Yes we were raised LDS - my parents were converts. As soon as my mother leaves this Earth I am going to cut all ties with family. I have to for my mental and emotional well being. So thank you for discussing this. It is a touchy and sensitive subject/issue. Unfortunately those who need help won't seek it because they, like my parents, think they are not doing anything wrong.
Also bad stuff goes on in Wards. And any mention of it and I am criticized for not blindly following my leaders and for speaking badly of said leaders. People are not concerned about what happened, just about my faithfulness. So there is another issue in church, behavior of the members in leadership positions that abuse members and abuse their positions. So I am labeled a heretic. I am attuned to these things because of my life.

Doug Towers said...

Anonymous

Thanks for sharing your feelings.

Your plight has touches of my own. My father and mother split when I was one year old. But by 4 I had to go to his place for the weekend each second week. While he didn't do anything sexual, he treated me badly as I was the younger brother.

Fortunately when I was 8 I decided that God knew what my father did and he forgave him, so I would too. This was actually a growing thing in my case. Though it didn't make it any easier at the time.

It is a shame that men accused who are innocent are abused and those who are guilty get away with it. It is plainly a Telestial world.

If you allow yourself to continue with your present feelings, you have a very high chance of dying from cancer. If you still have ADD then your counsellor isn't any good. I would advise a helper I know. He has had marvelous results with people such as yourself. People have changed perspective overnight with his aid. He won't critisize your feelings about leaders either. If you are interested let me know.

Anonymous said...

Doug, this is Anonymous who probably spilled too much about my life and abuse. Thank you for the kind words and offer of help. I am interested in this helper you know. I would like information to determine if I can do it. Thank you so much! Your generosity has astounded me. I can send you my e-mail.

Doug Towers said...

Anonymous

The best way to send me your email address and yet keep it private is to go to my "Doctrinal Questions Answered" site. The link is almost at the top of the page.

When you get there you just press the link for making a comment on any post. All you write will NOT be shown when you hit "Publish Your Comment," but I will get it.

Anonymous said...

I read this article earlier today, thought about it for some time, then decided to come back and leave some thoughts.

Yes, women are also the perpetuators of abuse in romantic relationships. But are they the MAIN perpetrators? No.

You point out that women are more likely to use a weapon against their spouse/partner in a conflict. Maybe, just maybe, this is because men are generally physically STRONGER than women? A woman who feels she's being abused would resort to yielding a weapon if she felt she was in danger against a physically dominant opponent. This is common sense, not proper justification of your dismissals of violence in this post.

Now on to that. Most of your post seems to be aimed at debunking the idea that many, many marriages, LDS or not, have issues with spousal abuse. Most of this abuse is not physical, but emotional and verbal.

I have a problem with this example you post: "For example a woman constantly nagging her husband can drive him to avoid coming home after work. He can get into the habit of going to the hotel for drinks with his work mates. Before long he can have become an alcoholic; and spending the family money on it."

This is a fine example in itself, but what you fail to acknowledge here is that the man is responsible for his own actions. Yes, the wife is making him feel unwelcome in the home, but this does not justify his actions in turning to alcohol. That's still on him, just like the wife's constant "nagging" is on her.

Anonymous said...

(cont)

Another issue: "from God's original statement that the man is actually to rule in the home in love. We can water it down to make it different to what the Scriptures say, to appease Women's Libbers. But it won't change reality. The truth still stands."

From The Family: A Proclamation to the World: "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

First off, you say the man is supposed "to rule in the home," the church itself says he is to "preside over their families in love and righteousness." Presiding is different than ruling. Ruling implies complete control. As you later state, you believe the man has the "final say" in all decisions. This is obviously in conflict with what the church says ("equal partners", and all.) Men are as imperfect as their wives. The priesthood does not make them more perfect.

Anonymous said...

(cont)
Presiding in the home is more of a cultivating role. The church states that the man should preside because he has the power of the priesthood (or should). This allows him to access that righteous power in times of emergency or dire need. When he needs counsel, he will need to pray and ask Heavenly Father what is right, just like his wife or any other member of his family would. To say that a righteous wife cannot come to the same righteous conclusions as her husband, just because he has the priesthood, is a misuse of that sacred privilege and a gateway to unhealthy marital relationships.

As stated in this Ensign article, "emotional abuse prevents couples from living up to Christ’s higher standard. It seeks to perpetuate false traditions and inappropriate behavior such as 'exercis[ing] control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men' (D&C 121:37) in subtle and seemingly socially acceptable ways." (http://www.lds.org/ensign/1996/06/the-invisible-heartbreaker?lang=eng)

Secondly, you make many blatant criticisms in your post about feminists and "Women's Libbers." That is extremely disrespectful. What feminists and women's rights activists aim for is equal treatment and respect. Who doesn't deserve that?

I believe the statistics about abuse in "single mother households" are most likely due to the mother's association with a physically abusive boyfriend or partner. This is not addressed, though, in your post. If that was a factor, it should have been included with the research.

And lastly, this statement: "When families are run the way that God has directed then these problems of abuse will cease."

(ie, when women agree to let their husbands have the final say in all their decisions, they will no longer think they are abused.)

This is false. This is perpetuating the idea that women how are emotionally, verbally, physically abused somehow deserve it. Abusive behavior is the responsibility of the one doing it. This doesn't mean the other spouse is not imperfect. They are responsible for making a happy, healthy marriage. But no spouse, regardless of gender, regardless of whether or not they're LDS, deserves to be abused. The abuser will ultimately answer for their actions.

Doug Towers said...

Anonymous

Thanks for expressing your feelings. I feel your statements reflect your feelings of defending women. You have missed where I am coming from for that reason. This is not intended to have a bash at women, though I can understand you feeling defensive.

Overall the points you raise in protest are obvious. Yet the point you're missing is that what we have been mind-washed with are false conceptions. The portrayal of the violent male and poor defenseless female is not consistent with reality. Yes, we could say that it is more often that way. But that does not sustain the claim. It's not even that way 70% of the time. So why do we have this nonsense drummed into us?

For one lie. Women's Libbers and Feminists re-invent history. They tell us that man has suppressed women over the millennia. Yet anyone able to think, that knows something about history, would remember Hatshepsut, pharoah of Egypt. And there were female pharoahs before her. Elizabeth has been Queen of Britain since the early 1950s and still is. Queen Victoria was queen of Britain for decades through the mid 1800's. Then there is Boudica, who was queen of the forces out to defeat Julius Caesar. I could go on with women in history who were rulers.

Yes, we can say that there were more kings than queens ruling. But is that the point? The fact that circumstances occurred where women ruled men is what counts. This was accepted by the society of the time and place.

We all should know that each person is responsible for their own actions. But this doesn't stop the never ending anti-male propaganda from being thrown at us.

There is no conflict between what I am saying and what the Proclamation says. In fact I have stated this same things in other words. As I stated, "yet should a man be domineering in running the home? Obviously not." You're coming in guns blazing but haven't caught the vision of what I'm saying.

You start to redefine what God has said in the book of Genesis and the book of Moses; ignoring Moses writing. We need to learn to blend Scriptures, not run away from them. Consider also _

1 Pet 3:6 "Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord..."
1 Tim 2:12-13 "But I suffer a woman not to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve."

These texts don't support your interpretation of the Proclamation. When church president Harold B. Lee stated that anything stated by anyone must be supported in the Scriptures. The only exception is where the president claims to have received it word for word from the Lord (which they didn't) and is then sustained by the Apostles and then by the membership. However I don't have any trouble with what they said. I just have a problem with how women are wishing to interpret it.

I remember going to a GD class a few years back. And the topic was eternal marriage. The teacher posed to the class the question of whether they could express their feelings on how they will feel having an eternity with their spouse. When 3 women had given their feelings on how wonderful it would be the teacher said, now how about a man? Can any of you brethren express how wonderful you will feel it will be being together for eternity and why? Not one hand went up. She then turned to her father asking him about how he felt. Much to his wife's disgust he refused to answer.

Though my wife has died, my response would be the same as all these brethren. You quote the Ensign and I agree with it. I felt truly suppressed through 20 years of marriage. I have some wonderful women now, but that is the future. And I certainly have NO intention of letting a woman do that to me again. She has free choice if she isn't happy with my decisions. She can leave at any time. And all those interested in me are happy with my interpretation of that.

Now you can talk about your interpretation of what some GAs have said. But I'd suggest you keep those Scriptures open.

Doug Towers said...

Anonymous

You say that Presiding is different than ruling. And then you have made some comment that ruling is different. But Jesus Christ is said to rule in the heavens. Yet he doesn't seem to regard that this makes him some tyrant (as you are implying). Man has free agency. Just as the wife does. And I have not stated otherwise. A stake president presides over his stake. Yet note that even while his instructions aren't always followed, he still has the last word.

You've said, "Secondly, you make many blatant criticisms in your post about feminists and "Women's Libbers." That is extremely disrespectful. What feminists and women's rights activists aim for is equal treatment and respect. Who doesn't deserve that?"

What feminists and women's rights activists aim for isn't respect, it is popularity and/or money (in my opinion). And with some it is just plain grumpiness about men.

You have said, "This is perpetuating the idea that women that are emotionally, verbally, physically abused somehow deserve it."

Notice that again your mind is working in the mind-washed attitude that it is women that are abused and not some men. Remember that in over 30% of cases it is men that are murdered by their wives. And while you're now working out some excuses for these women, work out some for the men.