{"id":2534,"date":"2014-09-16T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T00:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=2534"},"modified":"2021-11-26T15:36:30","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T07:36:30","slug":"110-marriage-and-family-the-biblical-imperative-to-speak-out-against-sexual-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=2534","title":{"rendered":"112.Marriage and Family: The Biblical Imperative to Speak Out Against Sexual Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?\u00a0Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed<\/span><\/strong>. [1 Cor. 5:6-7<\/span>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[L] Amnon and Tamar<\/em>, by Jan Steen, c.1660’s. [R]\u00a0The Banquet of Absalom<\/em>, by Niccolo de Simone, c.1650.<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of a module for scriptural reflection with couples, we speak about domestic violence – both physical and verbal – and encourage all to speak up against such abusive behaviour and to expose it for the evil that it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

[1] Verbal Abuse<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Between spouses, abuse may be of several types but the more hurtful type is verbal abuse. The abuser uses words to bully, to hurt and to demoralize. The abused is debased, made to feel small, and her dignity wounded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, the abuser may seem in other ways a loving spouse. In such a case, he may not realize that his sharp tongue is seriously wounding his spouse\u2019s human dignity and sense of self-worth. It gets real bad when this abusing spirit plays out in public or in front of the spouses\u2019 own children and grand children, before whom the abused suffers a loss of respect. If unchecked, this behaviour degenerates into a terrible habit, embarrassing even to others around. Once, at a dining table, a verbally abusive husband said something quite terrible to the wife in our presence. For us, this had happened one time too many. So we spoke to the man on the spot, also in public, pointing out to him what a terrible thing he had done to the wife and how embarrassing it was for the rest of us at the table. The wife cried, in relief, because someone noticed her wound and has finally spoken up for her. The man himself was stunned, because no one has ever pointed out to him how rotten he had become. Unchecked, his abusive streak had become his second nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another lady was even less fortunate. She had been a tortured soul in her own home. Her husband, a very senior government officer and a respected\u00a0personality in society, was a habitual verbal-abuser of her over an extensive period of time. Though, mindful of his public image, he had never behaved badly in respectable company, at home he was a real monster of a character, regularly degrading the wife even in front of their children. After a while, it settled down to a routine. Little did he know that his children had found him totally disgusting and quite unforgivable. Nobody at home had dared to speak up against him who thought of himself as a \u201cbig shot\u201d and behaved like one. A humiliated and tortured soul, the wife finally ended her own life on a day when the man was in office. Of their several children, all grown by then, \u00a0the only son, who had moved to another city to work, refused to come back for the mother\u2019s funeral, all because he did not want to see his father\u2019s face again, ever. The daughters are all married, and none would go home to visit the aged father, except for the youngest who would bring her own children to visit grandpa once a year out of pity for the old man. But even the grandchildren do not like to stay long, for grandpa is always grumbling that his children are an ungrateful bunch who neglect their father in old age.<\/span><\/p>\n