BATTERED WOMEN SYNDROME

- Written by: Shishir Chaganti ( Second Year student of O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonepat, Haryana)

A marriage is believed to be a sacrament that is meant to last for eternity. The society has assigned roles to the parties in the marriage. The husband is the bread winner and the provider for the family, and the wife is a caretaker both, her husband as well as her children. These roles create a power dynamic that inclines heavily in favour of the husband. This dynamic in essence makes the wife a property of her husband who depends solely on her husband for her well-being. It is therefore perceived to be normal for the husband to raise his hand on his wife. The society sanctions such behaviour. Women have been for the longest time victims of domestic violence.While there are several governments that have attempted to make stringent laws to curb this phenomenon, there are some (several African and Middle Eastern) countries that are yet to recognize Domestic Violence as a gross violation of basic human rights. Women getting beaten up by their husbands, which many a time proves to be fatal, mostly goes unreported. The reason for this is twofold. It is either because of the fact it being an occurrence within the household, the civil society would perceive it to be trivial, or because the woman goes through a psychological condition.

Battered Women Syndrome is a psychological condition that develops in living in an abusive relationship. It is a situation wherein a woman in an abusive relationship submits to the violence inflicted on her by her husband. This theory was first explained by Dr. Lenore Walker in his book, The Battered Women Syndrome which was published in 1984. In order to understand BWS, psychologists analysed certain phases in a marriage that lead to the development of such a psychological condition.

A man, during the first few weeks of his marriage tends to be overtly sweet to his wife. This in a way breaks the ice between the couple that inadvertently makes the woman believe that the man she got married to truly respects her, loves her, and that he is someone whom she could fully confide in. When in such a phase, an argument breaks out and the husband, in the heat of the moment, raises his hand at his wife, the wife is in a state of shock. She cannot bring herself to believe the fact that her husband had behaved in a manner that she would never had imagined. In such a scenario, it is not unusual for the husband to put in his best efforts to make up for his misbehaviour. His behaviour makes the wife believe that her husband would never react in the same manner as he did in their previous argument. She therefore moves on.

However, as the relationship grows in its age and the fights between the couple between the couple become more and more frequent, what is inferred is these acts of violence by the husband are not random, rather it is a cycle of abuse. The husband just needs an excuse to inflict physical harm on his wife. The more a woman tries to resist and fight back, the more she gets hurt. If she tries to avail help, she gets hit. If tries to reason things out, she gets hit. If she tries to hit the husband back, she faces hell. Sadly, most women in this stage do not make it alive out of this phase. Those who do, enter a stage, a stage that is termed by several psychologists as a stage of learned helplessness.

While living in such an abusive relationship, the woman, in order to protect herself submits herself to her husband. She tends to perform those actions that she would ordinarily not have done if not for her husband’s ill treatment. This phase of learned helplessness is best understood in an English case, R v. Ahluwalia. Kiranjeet Ahluwalia suffered immensely at the hands of her husband. Over the course of her marriage, she had a broken finger, had a few burn injuries and had even been knocked unconscious by her husband. However, in order to prevent her marriage from being dissolved (to sake of her children) and in order to save herself from the violence, she submitted to her husband. Amongst many things she had promised her husband to protect herself, she promised that she would not to step out to meet her friends, that she would quit her job and that she would even stop eating green chilli!

The society we live in today to a certain degree, still remains indifferent to appalling reality that domestic violence is. In such a scenario, to recognize BWS as a serious issue is remote possibility. Kiranjeet Ahluwalia happened to kill her husband as a retaliation to everything he had done to her. The court of law however did not consider the mental condition of the wife while having convicted of murder. For a person living for 10 years in such an unfortunate setting, it is but obvious that her depression had taken over her, and that she was not in mental state to have comprehended the gravity of her actions. Battered Women Syndrome is a condition that needs to be given the attention and understanding it deserves. While incorporating it into the legal framework in order to safeguard the rights of a married woman is an extremely far fetched shot, the least that can be done is to spread awareness and inform people that such a mental condition exists and that women suffer more than we men think they do.