WHY DID SHE STAY?

Some would say she saw it coming, but did nothing and would not leave; so she deserve what she is getting. Her brother warned her not to marry him. Why didn’t she run, take her little belongings and leave him, when it happened the first time? Her brother had told her about the man she wants to marry; that there was something unsettling about him that he did not like.

There was something in the man she said she wants to get married to, but she ignored the warning and still insists she must marry him. She was twenty when they got married. She had completed her secondary school and was living with her older brother when Iheagbu proposed to her.

The first time Iheagbu hit his young wife, she was pregnant with their first child. The shock of what he did perplexed her more than the actual sharp slap across her face. She said she felt the sound right through her ear, and it ricocheted through her eyes and into her brain. She was dazed for hours. The echo of the sound ringing stars in her eyes. She could not believe that Iheagbu, her husband and the father of their unborn child would hit her that hard. But he did, and so many times more. When she asked him why he hit her that first day, he had responded by telling her, ‘if she asks him that stupid question again, he will slap her.

The print of his fingers spread across her left cheek like millipede’s acidic side effect, the face was swollen. What made him do it? And why do some men hit their wives? What could have provoked Iheagbu to continue to beat his pregnant wife even after he professed to love her?

What devil possessed him?

When she tried to walk away that first time, he stopped her by the door- threatening to teach her a lesson if she steps out of the door. For some reason, she didn’t listen to him. The anger and power that rose inside of her to defend herself were too much to listen so passively to his command. She did not obey the simple command. She left the two rooms where they lived and walked into the yard where they shared with other tenants, but she was too ashamed to go to any of them. What will she tell them that happened?? Although the swollen face has the evidence of what happened. Would she be able to tell her neighbors that her husband, the man she is carrying their first child hit her and that the pain in her head felt like shock waves.

Precious has since had their first child, a girl and their second child, a boy. She is now pregnant with their third child. Some many times she had summoned up the courage to leave him when he beat her and moved back home to be with her mother, but each time, he comes begging, she would go back home with him. His mother had grown tired of telling her to leave the man- that he was possessed. Her brother had given up on her- and told her that if she dies, the reason is her stupidity.

Who would care for her children, she had asked her brother? She did not want the responsibility to fall on her brother, who has taken care of her and the family. He had done much for her, sending her to school and taking care of her. She did not want to place the responsibility of raising her children on him. This is the reason she keeps going back to her husband.

She had no income and has not been able to find a job since leaving secondary school. When she left him the last time to be with her mother. She silently wished he would change and not hit her again. This time, pregnant with their third child, what would she do? Her mother hoped her young daughter will come to her senses, but again, he came begging and she went home with him. That afternoon, after she arrived home with her husband, Mr. Iheagbu. Something unusual was in the air. There was something different about him- something calm and dangerous. The question on everyone’s lips was, why didn’t she sense it? Why would a pregnant woman sense trouble and walk right into it? Sometimes we do not need a survey to know that fear of the unknown seems to be the culprit that locks most abusive women into an abusive relationship. The helplessness that comes from a lack of power to do something for oneself that would liberate one often is the rivet that keeps some women bound in an abusive relationship.

What makes a woman want to stay with a man she knows clearly lacks control and wishes to hurt her?

That noon, he was saying that people are wicked. Mr. Iheagbu is a trader of car wheels and owns a store where he sells car parts.

In his store that afternoon, Mr. Iheagbu hid behind his store gallon of petrol and match. He went to his neighbor, who is believed owed him money and called her into the store. His pregnant wife and their two children were inside the store too. Mr. Iheagbu proceeded to the back store where he hid the gallon of petrol and began pouring the liquid around the store. He had locked the front door. He also began to pour the liquid on his pregnant wife’s foot, saying people are wicked. What precisely, the wicked people did, Mr. Iheagbu never said, but just proceeded to light the room ablaze leaving his pregnant wife and his two children inside. The quick sensing neighbor struggled with Iheagbu to leave the door as he proceeded to leave, but the wife was just as perplexed as she was the first time, he slapped her face. She was dazed as if she was hypnotized and can’t even find her feet to take her kids out of the room. If not for the neighbor who ran out and started screaming for help, Precious and her two young children would have been burnt to death. They each received third digress burns to their hands and legs, The skin on Precious skin has fallen off leaving just the white skin. Her two young children, their arms and face badly burnt.

What would make a man to do such to his family? When Precious brother was called to come home, he refused to go. He told the caller that he knew his sister’s husband must have killed her and then would not go. It was when the caller called him again and asked him to go to Enugu hospital that he decided to go and see his sister. She was in pain from her head to her toe- her entire legs and hands and thighs burnt.

Education is paramount to ensuring that some women understand what constitutes domestic abuse.

When a man slaps or hits his spouse the first time, he is out of control. The intentions are to hurt the other by controlling. It is not because the man loves her and needs to correct her- after all, the wife is not a child. It is to control and relegate her to the status of his possession- something he can dominate.

When a man hits a woman the first time or uses an abusive language to disregard her, the woman should take note and refuse to tolerate that kind of an abuse. If he hits her the second time, then he will do it again and perhaps again- and unless he gets help or the woman leaves the relationship, the abuse will continue.

Domestic Violence is a pattern of behavior used to establish power and control over another person through fear and intimidation, often including the threat or use of force.