Despite the numerous Domestic violence laws, women protection acts and women cells in India at present; physical abuse and domestic violence is still rampant and grossly underreported. This article describes my experience in dealing with victims of domestic abuse as a medical student.\u

Kaur, Dr Gurmeen

English

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Real men don't beat their wives!\ud

Cognitive Sciences ePrint Archive

 Volume 1 (1) 2010 Perspective 
 
Kaur G  
 
‘REAL MEN DON’T BEAT THEIR WIVES’ 
Gurmeen Kaur* 
* Student, Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi 
Email: kaur.gurmeen@gmail.com 
ABSTRACT:  
Despite the numerous Domestic violence laws, 
women protection acts and women cells in 
India at present; physical abuse and domestic 
violence is still rampant and grossly 
underreported. This article describes my 
experience in dealing with victims of domestic 
abuse as a medical student. 
Article 
She sat there looking at us, her eyes brimming 
with tears and pleading with us. There was 
nothing that we could do; we had no 
comforting words to offer to her. We told her 
to lay back, rest and feed her new born baby 
daughter. This was Chandni Devi’s sixth 
consecutive daughter. She had had a son few 
years ago but he died soon after being brought 
out into this world by an untrained Dai 
(untrained birth attendant). Chandni herself 
merely survived that pregnancy as her womb 
became infected and her perineum was torn 
due to rough handling by the village dai during 
labour. Her husband had just abandoned her 
because she gave birth to another daughter. 
The minute he was allowed to meet her in the 
post delivery room he came in and hit her hard 
on the face while verbally abusing her as well 
not caring that there were doctors and medical 
students around. The head nurse of the wing 
tried to stop him but he shouted at her as well, 
said it was not her business and actually pushed 
her away. He then hit his wife a few more 
times, told her that he is divorcing her, that 
her five daughters were with their maternal 
grandmother and left her forever. 
This is not just the story of Chandni, this is the 
plight of thousands of women in India. 
 Volume 1 (1) 2010 Perspective 
 
Kaur G  
 
Domestic violence is far from over. Studies 
from different parts of the country draw our 
attention to the shockingly high rates of 
domestic violence. While urban South India and 
the eastern part of the country report rates as 
high as 56% (1,2),  62% women from Pune (3) 
report to have been the victims of domestic 
violence and physical abuse. Calcutta (4) fairs 
slightly better with a prevalence of 17%. Ruikar 
et al have characterized the forms of violence 
inflicted and found that the most commonly 
reported husband's behavior included slapping 
(98.8%) followed by pushing (39.8%) & kicking 
wives (33.7%). (3) The figures paint a clearer 
picture of the story that these anecdotes 
attempt to tell.  
Nahar Singh was a 3 year old first born male 
baby in a well to do family diagnosed with 
Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy Grade 4 
commonly known as Cerebral Palsy. He had not 
even achieved neck holding till the age of three 
years. He did not recognize his mother, could 
not feed and had not attained a single 
milestone. The reason for his condition was 
that his mother was beaten up by her mother-
in-law during labour and had not been allowed 
to undergo an institutional delivery, the baby 
had not cried at birth and the untrained birth 
attendant had slapped him several times on the 
head and poured ice cold water over his body 
to make him cry. He had seizures since birth 
and a host of other complications and was 
doomed to live a miserable life because of 
cerebral palsy. 
 Women who experience physical violence from 
their husbands are significantly less likely to 
adopt contraception and more likely to 
experience an unwanted pregnancy (5). It was 
a fine Monday morning and we were posted in 
the family planning department when 
Bhupendra came in tagging along 2 sons and 1 
daughter with another child in her arms. She 
came requesting for an abortion, she had her 
last child 4 months ago and did not want any 
more but her husband would not allow any 
contraceptive measure. She told us that 
contraception was against their religious 
practices and even suggesting it to him would 
 Volume 1 (1) 2010 Perspective 
 
Kaur G  
 
only lead to her being beaten up. Since this is 
such a usual story we thought we would try 
talking to the husband despite being told by 
the workers around that it would not help. We 
were in our third year and still had the 
enthusiasm to try and change things around and 
so we went ahead and tried. All we managed to 
achieve was Bhupendra being beaten in front of 
us and forcibly dragged home without even 
getting her abortion. This left us scared and 
guilty because we knew that now she would be 
forced to get an illegal abortion from a quack 
doctor and would risk her life in turn. It was 
then that we realized the futility of 
enthusiastic convincing and coercing.  
Besides the obvious psychological and sexual 
health related issues, domestic violence has 
been reported to be associated with chronic 
malnutrition and anemia among women growth 
retardation in children. (6) 
It is so usual for women to come to the hospital 
with remote complaints of backache, pain in 
limbs, who on examination are found to have 
multiple bruises and cuts over their bodies. 
Even on direct interrogation most on them will 
not admit that they are being physically abused 
and tortured. In fact the Ruikar et al report in 
their study that 17.8% women actually justified 
physical abuse by husband. The most commonly 
reported behavior of women included crying 
(85.2%) & silently bearing the physical abuse 
(59%). (3) We have seen rape victims with third 
degree perineal tears and vaginal lacerations 
not admitting because of the fear of society, 
because of the fear of the trial where they 
would have to ‘prove’ and because they would 
be forced to carry around the stigma for life. 
Neeta had slipped on the floor of her bathroom 
for the third time in a month. The truth was 
that her husband had beaten her up yet again. 
Even the doctor knew the truth but we all 
would pretend. We did not want to add to her 
agony especially because her husband was 
accompanying her, making sure that she does 
not let on the truth. We hoped the play acting 
would help – somehow… 
The reason why females do not rebel and 
complain about the torture on the domestic 
 Volume 1 (1) 2010 Perspective 
 
Kaur G  
 
front stems from the ancient Indian belief that 
their husband is their God and that once they 
have been married and sent into their 
husband’s family only their pyre is allowed to 
leave that place which implies that the scope 
for separation or divorce from the side of the 
wife is next to nil. A divorced woman is said to 
be a stigma to the society thereby belittling 
her will to live an independent happy life 
without her husband’s care and shelter. It is 
this fear of separation that makes even the 
educated, seemingly aware females silently 
accept physical and psychological violence in 
their marital lives. They want their marriages 
to work at any cost; they want social and 
financial security for their children for whom 
they even undertaken brutal humiliation and 
subjugation. 
We all know that when two big countries fight 
and when missiles and tankers attack there is 
violence, death, calamity and ill heath but 
little do we realize how small scale violence 
affects the health status of a country and 
hence the world. The effect of domestic 
violence in India on global health can be 
understood if we look at the adverse impact it 
has on health indices of the country. I would 
rate Domestic violence as being the main cause 
of our dismal health indicators of High Maternal 
and Perinatal mortality, high Infant Mortality 
rates and the lopsided sex ratio. Infact the 
reason for India being the second most 
populous country is also explained as females 
are not allowed or don’t dare to make their 
family size choices due to fear of being 
subjected to violence.  
Even the classes of Indian men not actively 
beating their wives up are causing emotional 
turmoil and psychological damage because of 
the patriarchal pattern of society. In the 
Southern part of the country where a 
matriarchal system exists there is a better sex 
ratio, a higher female literacy rate and a lower 
maternal and child mortality. Gandhiji had 
stated years ago that if you educate the woman 
of the family, you educate the whole family! 
 Volume 1 (1) 2010 Perspective 
 
Kaur G  
 
The violence against Chandni and other women 
across India is entrenched in South Asian 
cultural beliefs and practices. It does not fit 
into the usual definition of violence concerning 
migration and wars but it is true and existent. 
It influences health, both national and global. 
It stems from our prejudices, biased 
perspectives, egos and negative attitudes. We 
have to strive as a country and as citizens of 
this world to break these shackles binding us. 
We have to work really hard – as doctors, as 
students, through NGO’s, as law enforcing 
agencies as it is a concerted effort of all of us 
together that might help us fight violence in 
everyday life and attain a healthier world. We 
need to create an attitudinal change. We need 
to spread the one line slogan that originally 
started in the Philippines – Real Men don’t beat 
their wives! 
REFERENCES: 
1. Rocca CH, Rathod S, Falle T et al. 
Challenging assumptions about 
women’s empowerment: social and 
economic resources and domestic 
violence among young married women 
in urban South India. International 
Journal of Epidemiology 2009;38:577–
585 
2. Babu BV, Kar SK. Domestic violence 
against women in eastern India: a 
population-based study on prevalence 
and related issues. BMC Public Health 
2009, 9:129 
3. Ruikar MM, Pratinidhi AK. Physical wife 
abuse in an urban slum of Pune, 
Maharastra. Indian J Public Health. 
2008;52(4):215-7. 
4. Pandey GK, Dutt D, Banerjee B.  
Partner and Relationship Factors in 
Domestic Violence: Perspectives of 
Women From a Slum in Calcutta, India. 
J Interpers Violence 2009; 24; 1175. 
5. Stephenson R, Koenig MA, Acharya R, 
Roy TK. Domestic Violence, 
Contraceptive Use, and Unwanted 
Pregnancy in Rural India. Studies In 
Family Planning 2008; 39[3]: 177–186. 
 Volume 1 (1) 2010 Perspective 
 
Kaur G  
 
6. Akerson LK, Subramanian SV. Domestic 
Violence and Chronic Malnutrition 
among Women and Children in India. 
Am J Epidemiol. 2008; 167(10): 1188–
1196. 
 


Challenging assumptions about women’s empowerment: social and economic resources and domestic violence among young married women in urban South India.

Domestic violence against women in eastern India: a population-based study on prevalence and related issues. BMC Public Health

Domestic Violence, Contraceptive Use, and Unwanted Pregnancy in Rural India. Studies In Family Planning

Partner and Relationship Factors in Domestic Violence: Perspectives of Women From a Slum in Calcutta,

Physical wife abuse in an urban slum of Pune,

Real men don't beat their wives!\ud

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