Till death do us part…?
What happens to the vow soon after it has been said? I have been wondering about this for quite a long time now. I know, like everyone else who has stayed in the vow for any length of time, the emotions and thoughts, let alone the turmoils that follow. They are definite to follow. For some, they follow immediately, while for others they take longer to come. But come they do.
With divorce rates ranging between 7% (Vietnam) and 58% (Portugal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_demography, it is no wonder that discussions are needed to embrace these massive shifts in social structure from the way it has been for millennia.
I admire anyone who goes far enough to take the vow. I admire those who manage to stay within the vow. And I admire the courage of those that choose to leave the vow behind when the practicality and the ideality stop matching. The ones who leave, these are the people who search deep into themselves, value their lives, and see they deserve better. They go out of where they feel undervalued, to seek their value. I admire the women who leave their marriages, especially when they have nothing in the way of material gain, but only the value of finding themselves and their freedom when they leave the vow. But, that’s saying too much too far, yet.
I have been pummelled with horror stories from women sticking it out to maintain their vows, stay in their marriages, for society, for the children, for the name and status of being married. I have sympathized with them. I have empathized. I have encouraged. I have advised. I have accompanied some who were too afraid to go back home alone. I have counseled, and I have questioned myself if my advice to stay or to leave is in any way correct or right. For sure, some have thanked me and said it was the best advice that I gave them. Others have gone on to shake the advice. All they needed was an ear to listen. Others have seen things from a different perspective. All that has been great.
But deep in myself, after a deep experience-sharing encounter with a woman, I have always stayed with burning questions. Above them all has always been the one: Is the marriage vow worth it? Is the marriage vow anything we should still be taking, and upholding, given our current divorce rates? If we should be continuing to take it, should it not be changing its wording at least?
How it works on women
From a woman’s point of view, since women are disproportionately affected by marriage and divorce, the function of the vow is grim. Sharing in the women’s feelings, roles, and wishes from the depths of my heart, I find my heart bleeding when I consider the power and strength is in each of them as they endure the most degrading treatment for the sake of a vow.
“My husband beats me up every day. He wants me to leave him. He brings his mistress and sleeps with her in our bed, while I am forced to sleep on the floor. Can you imagine how I feel when I hear them kiassing and fucking just a few centimeters from me? It feels like the do it the extra just to spite me.”
When we made the vow, I muse, was this wife-beater, the one I was vowing for? When I made the vow, did I know he would replace me on the marriage bed? If I had known, would I have made that vow? If I had known that my value for him would plummet to nothing, would I have taken the vow? I ask myself, putting myself in the shoes of the story teller.
Who do the marriage vows serve? My sisters would say that they serve the menfolk. It becomes a chain around the neck of the woman, who feels compelled to live and stay true to the vow and her role as a wife, a mother, a unifier of the family unit. On the other hand, the man, once the vows are made, feels like the doors to freedom have opened. He is independent. He has been freed from many responsibilities. He comes home to a well-maintained household, whose maintenance tasks he has not much concern for. This is what gives him the time and space to go out and breed mischief.
Forgive my rantings. It is not all men who do these things. But the different ones are the exception. My apologies to the exceptions. And my apologies to the women who are well satisfied in their marriages. However, many women find their relationships dissatisfying to say the lightest, and absolute unbearable in the worst case, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889678/
Why then, do we endure abuse and degradation for the sake of the vow? What power does the vow hold over us? Why would we stand being beaten to near deth for the sake of the vow? And still vow to stay till we die? And for sure, we do die for the vow. Thirty-eight percent homicides are related to marital violence (UNDOC, 2018).
Webbed in the vow
The problem is that once in, bound by the vow, it is very hard to leave the marital bond, especially when you now have children in the marriage, and with the relationships, you would have built. The vow hovers over us and tells us we made a promise and to break it means we are flimsy in character, we are untrustworthy, we are unhinged, and we are bad, bad girls. That is on the personal and character level. Then comes the social level. Children will lose (not always) one of their paretns, children will be destabilised, paretns will be shamed, friends will think us whiny, and fathers will disown us.
Another thing, we will not have the money to return the bride price. That takes us to an economic level. And all the gifts we received froom the man will be demnaded back (in societies that puts a lot of monetary value on the woman) and we feel as women that if we leave, we remove the value from ourselves. We are breaking the monetary value we promised we would bring to this family.
As if that was not enough, there is the guilty feeling instilled in us for even thinking about leaving our vowed for husbands. How can we? It is this guilty feeling that is a result of upbringing, traditions hammered into our heads, practices we grow up seeing and accepting, and the sheer insecurity that puts our livleihood even remotely in a man’s power. At this emotional level, an ominous touch is added to the equation. It comes with self-blame for wanting to leave an abusive vowed relationship. That is a crippling place to be.
“Where would I go?”
One woman asked me, saying there was nowhere for her to go if she ran away from her abuser husband.
“I will leave this place in a coffin!” affirmed another, exacty in alignment with the vows intentions. My question, is he worth your death? In reality?
As we can see from tehse statements, it is extremely hard for any woman to decide, and then gather enough courage to leave her mariage. For any woman to decide to leave the marital union, there has to be a lot that has gone on to bring her to that point. She has endured and sought other options and found them non-viable. She has gone in circles endlessly and repeatedly. The time has come to deliver the final action. The final is the hardest.
Worldwide
Surprisingly, the demographies of marital unhappiness and wife/women marital abuse is not restricted to any special ethnic groups. It is a phenomenon that embraces the whole world (UNDOC 2018). Whenever my friends talk about it, the dtories are so similar despite wide geographical origins.
If women can endure this much and worldwide because of the vow, isn’t it time to look at the vow itself, its places and time of birth, and seek to at least reword it? In my experiences, the vow weighs on the woman more than on the man. How can women be truly independent and liberated, if the vow’s implications weigh more in the woman than on the man?
Which is why, without advocating for divorce, my take is that it is better to leave the vow alive and in one piece than suffer dehumanising abuse and treatment.
WomenAid (2020) stated some interesting facts and statistics about marital dissatisfaction and abuse. And much has been written and said about it in many development and spiritual circles. The high divorce rates may be pointing to a consciousness and the final opening of doors for women in vowed relationships that are abuseive.
I have had my share of it all. I would like to say in the vows …
