Why are women who tolerate abuse idolized?

This is what my mother told me one day.

Mother : There was a woman. Her husband used to beat her everyday. He used to verbally abuse her a lot. But, she never protested anything. She used to tolerate all the abuse quietly.

Me : ……..

Me : ……..

Mother : The woman said, “My husband works hard all day. He meets various people. They anger him. I don’t want him to show his anger on those people and fight with them. So, I let him beat me and verbally abuse me.” See, how good that woman was. She loved her husband so much. All the women should be like her.

Me : ………

There is another incident. One day, I was reading a book. I wanted to know something, so I was reading that. Now, that book contained some chapters which were the personal thoughts of the author. There was a chapter on the relation between a husband and a wife. In that chapter, the author wrote about a very ‘good woman’. The incident which was narrated is summarised below:

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There was a woman. He had a mistress. He used to stay with her. But, every other day he used to ask his ‘wife’ to cook pulao, biriyani etc.  and send it to him. The wife was very ‘good’. So, she used to obey her husband.

Now, why does this happen? There are several reasons. We had a teacher. He is much older than my mother and is quite conservative. I respect him a lot.

One day he said, “There are some students who don’t study properly and after the exam they tell their parents that the paper was very hard, they weren’t taught all these etc. They are just like those men who get beaten outside (the house) and then, go home and show ‘bahaduri’ in front of their wives. 

This is real. Many men abuse their wives at home inorder to satisfy their ego. Many women tolerate such abuse because they have nowhere to go. 

I know several women who say, “If I could earn or my parents would have accepted me back, I would have left this man long ago.”

And then, there are women who ‘love’ their husbands too much. 

Some other women are made to think since childhood, that abuse in the hands of their husbands is completely normal and as dutiful wives, they should tolerate everything and keep loving their husbands.

And this cycle goes on and on.

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