Divorce or Rectification – What should a distressed wife choose?

My cousin Deepa is yet another victim of domestic violence by her husband and in-laws. On behalf of the tormented soul, I ask for society’s opinion on a vital decision that she has to take regarding her marital life.

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Deepa is an urban, educated girl who got married to a gentleman who promised to give her a good life. After the initial honeymoon, instigated and encouraged by his family, the husband started harassing the girl for dowry. He would torture her emotionally too. He distanced himself from his wife and wanted to divorce her, with the support of his family.

Deepa could sense that though it appeared as though her husband was to blame for the way he was behaving with her, the root cause of her problems was not actually her husband, but her in-laws who skillfully worked in the background to create distances between her and her husband. She felt that without the fuelling of her in-laws her martial disaster would not have assumed such dangerous dimensions. So, rather than divorce her husband, she decided to rectify him by changing his deep-rooted faulty concepts that his conservative upbringing had bestowed upon him. But she is facing quite a few problems in doing so.

The first step that she took was to speak about the problem to her husband and in-laws, but she got a negative response from them. They simply would not understand her problem. Next, she knocked the doors of relatives and friends to help out in the situation and give her husband some good advice. None of them really involved themselves in the issue.Some of them suggested that if she choose to stay with her husband, she should accept his crimes against her. Others suggested that she take up this issue with a women’s organization.

As advised, Deepa went to a women’s organization. The organization told her that the best thing for her to do was to take divorce, as they could not really change a man’s mentality. They told her that she should file a police case against her husband and get him beaten. But this was not Deepa’s aim. She never really wanted to punish her husband, but to rectify him with the help of support. Though people say that her husband is the culprit, she feels that he would not have become so without the influence of his kin. Tell me, so many children of this world are being trained into becoming terrorists. Are the children to blame or their tutoring?

Eventually, Deepa goes to legal bodies. But its so surprising that there are well written laws for breaking a marriage but not for patching up a marriage. Lawyers tell Deepa, that legal intervention can only break a marriage but not patch it up. They were too keen to help her for taking divorce but not for patching up her marriage.

I ask, is there no single soul on this earth who can sternly tell a wrong doer that he is wrong and that he will be taken to task if he doesn’t behave in a fair manner? Millions of women are getting raped everyday, millions of women are being thrown out of their houses everyday and millions of daughters-in-law are committing suicide every hour.

Its rather disgusting to know that most of us are mere spectators in such situations. I know, these words sound cliché, but people have to reiterate this because despite being reminded of our social responsibilities over and over again, most of us have done very little to fight social evils.

Many women like Deepa are asked to take divorce. But is divorce really the answer in a case like Deepa’s? I have seen many Indian in-laws getting away with divorce. They ill- treat a girl, take divorce and start afresh with their wrong doings. They don’t learn a lesson. I think Deepa is right in not opting for divorce, but trying to rectify her husband. She needs to be empowered by society. But I am rather disgusted by social attitude. They are asking her to end the marriage with divorce. What do you think?

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