Domestic Violence & Sexual Relations within Marriage

 
 
Stories from every country feature domestic violence—whether physical, sexual, verbal, psychological, emotional or financial. The extent of the violence is shocking, with (mostly) men trying to assert their authority by literally and figuratively knocking down and sexually abusing their wives. Occasionally, other members of the family—fathers, in-laws, co-wives, siblings—perpetrated violence against the resource persons as well, though most of the stories involved spousal abuse. In the stories, abuse happened to women from a variety of circumstances, including those who were most vulnerable to begin with (such as child brides) and those who were powerful and strong (such as independent businesswomen and politicians).
 
Domestic violence and forced sexual relations can be linked to the qiwamah logic that the husband is responsible for providing and protecting his wife while the wife must absolutely obey her husband, as well as to interpretations of Qur’anic verse 4:34 that allow a man to hit his wife. Changing mind-sets and values is a particular challenge when many men feel that the Qur’an provides them with the right to chastise their wives and that Muslim family laws justify their authority. But many alternative readings of verse 4:34 exist, and marriage relations in the Qur’an are generally based on love and compassion (mawaddah wa rahmah), serenity (sakinah), dignity (karamah), and consultation and mutual consent (tashawur wa taradi). The Prophet himself exemplified treating wives with love, kindness and respect, rather than violence. The question of protecting Muslim women from domestic violence and all other forms of discrimination does not relate to religion; it is simply a matter of political will.
 
Some observations from the stories include the following:
 
 

Resource persons most frequently discussed physical abuse, ranging from minor arguments that occasionally became violent to frequent severe beatings. Many wives were not surprised by this type of behaviour from their husbands and in-laws because it is so common, and thought themselves fortunate if they were not physically beaten. They endured the violence for a long time because of fear, stigma or feeling they had no way out.

 
When Nadira from Indonesia suspected and accused her husband of an affair, he slapped, pushed and kicked her, and then threatened to kill her if she accused him again. She refused to see a doctor because she was ashamed, but went to her husband’s office the next day to report the abuse to his boss.

After reporting this case, I felt very afraid because my husband might be angry with me. My feeling was right. He came home and abused me several times. He kicked my stomach, threw a block from the terrace at me and pulled a match from his pocket to burn my head. No one was at home and able to help me. I screamed loudly and ran to the bathroom and flushed my head with water. I felt the severe pain in my head and body. My head and body were burning. I was shivering and ran away from the house to ask for help. I went to a neighbour’s house and they took me to the doctor to save me. I was hospitalized for a week and my children took care of me in the hospital. I was devastated but I couldn’t think what was the best thing to do at that time. I felt depressed, traumatized and afraid.

 
Hauwa Balarabe from Nigeria endured physical abuse until she could stand it no longer:

Initially my marriage was good, but gradually my husband became abusive. He would beat me with his uniform belt and give all sorts of excuses for the beating. He would get upset and beat me for wanting to discuss personal issues with him or if I refused to have sex with him. I became very scared of him, so much so I couldn’t eat properly. Whenever we were not on good terms, he would fling my plates and dishes after eating. The day I will never forget was when I served him half-cooked food. He was so angry that he flogged me with the buckle of his belt. The hook stuck in my head and I had to go to the hospital to get it removed. I still have the scar on my head. This was the final straw that ended the marriage.

Rafeeqa from the United Kingdom was married at the age of 15 and faced a violent husband. She narrates:

My ex-husband was also a very abusive man, spoke harshly and thought I was there only to be used and abused...I ended up running away after he tried to kill me. I fled to the police station in the early hours of the morning with nothing but the clothes I had on, and my daughter—no shoes or belongings. I stayed in a shelter but was constantly harassed by family members to return to him.

Hawa from the Gambia states:

My husband used to batter me, especially when he was planning on marrying his second wife. I can remember him beating me severely just after giving birth to our last son and it was so serious that I could not move my neck for five days.

Several of the resource persons also discussed verbal, emotional or psychological abuse at the hands of their husbands.

 
Shafira from Indonesia was repeatedly berated and humiliated by her husband, who called her offensive names, insulted her by claiming that he had been her saviour (“If I didn’t marry you, you would be living under the bridge!”) and threatened her with violence (“If I see you with your male friends, I will beat you and have your son beat you as well!”). He had loud screaming fits that the neighbours overheard, which was embarrassing to Shafira. This emotional abuse evolved into financial and control issues: “Shafira never received any money from her husband during her marriage. He did not trust her to manage the family budget and did the shopping himself. He controlled the family and wanted Shafira to be obedient and fulfil all his demands.”
 
Rashida from Nigeria faced physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband and also emotional and financial abuse. He refused to provide for her and their children, to the extent that there was no food in the house and the children could not go to school. Rashida wanted to work, but he forbade her and controlled her movement from the house. “[For Rashida,] the turning point came when she found out he had sabotaged her search for work. He would go behind her back and tell those she had approached not to employ her. She said someone offered her a job, which she accepted, and at the time they also asked her if she had asked her husband’s permission and she said she had. She said her husband found out and he called the man and abused him, and also accused the man of adultery with Rashida. She said this caused her to no longer trust him.”
 
 

In some cases, it was not just the husbands but other family members who were abusive towards the resource persons.

 
Kumba from the Gambia, a successful businesswoman, was not liked by the brothers of her second husband, so they harassed her, told her husband lies about her, beat her and threw her and her belongings out of the family compound while he was travelling and she was eight months pregnant.
 
Sally, also from the Gambia, was a powerful woman who eventually became a Parliamentary Secretary. In her fourth marriage, however, her sisters-in-law and mother-in-law criticized her because she was past child-bearing age and convinced her husband that he needed to have children, and so should take a second wife. She complained to him, and he physically abused her.
 
Amalia from Indonesia was emotionally abused by her husband’s second wife, who worked to further turn her husband against her physically and emotionally:

When I arrived home, he apologized for hurting me. I said, ‘Well, I accept your apology but I have one requirement. Do not bring your second wife to stay here! It’s sickening.’ They never kept the promise. She came to visit him while he was in my house. She tried to make me sick and leave my husband. She showed her affection and romance towards him in front of me...I sent them away and they were both very shocked. Syam got angry and we had a big fight. He took a gas cylinder and threw it at me. Syam pulled my hair, punched my face, slapped the back of my head and pushed my head against the wall. I felt dizzy and fell down. He kicked my shoulder and dragged me out of the house and said, ‘Go to hell, Satan!’

Husbands frequently used sexual violence—forcing sexual intercourse, demanding sexual obedience or withholding sexual relations—as a method of asserting control and dominance over resource persons. Despite the fact that sexual relations within marriage are considered the right of both partners in both classical and contemporary religious discourses, men were assumed by many resource persons and their families and communities to have superior sexual rights; women were expected to be obedient and submissive.

 
Salamatu from Nigeria was forced to marry a 40-year-old man who had a reputation as a wife-beater, when she was 13:

A few days after the marriage, my husband gave me a severe beating because I refused to have sexual relations with him. It continued that way for almost six months, until one day he was able to get his way with me sexually; Danlami beat and raped me. I was bruised all over, from my entire body to my private parts. I ran away...After I got back home, my father gave me a beating and told me never to come back to his house or he would kill me; I was to return to my husband’s house and I was expected to be a good wife. I was forced to go back to Danlami’s house and the beating continued for a year. Sometimes he would come back late at night, drunk and smelling of alcohol. On those nights, his sexual desire would increase and the beatings would increase. I would get simultaneously raped and beaten.

Samina, who is originally from India but now lives in Canada, coped with sexual violence and manipulation from both of her husbands. About her first husband, she says:

Whenever he wanted sex, I had to do it. I never wanted it. And he would say that I was a frigid woman. I was not interested in sex. I could not forgive him for what he did during and before marriage. I remember during the wedding he was flirting with my friend. During our marriage, through credit card use, I found out that he was cheating on me.

Samina’s second husband used sexual relations as a weapon against her during the conflict with her co-wife. She explains:

As for sex in our marriage, when I wanted it he would not be willing and when I did not want it, he wanted it. He would wake me up in the middle of sleeping, excite me and when I was excited and would ask for it he would go back to sleep. He would just have it whenever he wanted it.

Amina, a convert from Canada, said that she and her husband had sexual problems from the start, but she submitted because she was trying to be a good wife and a good Muslim:

We were taught, it’s your duty as a wife, and if you don’t, the angels will curse you or God will curse you. And there can be no free consent in those circumstances. Sometimes I would be just too sick or too tired, and I would refuse, and I would feel terribly guilty, like God is going to punish me…The ideas about sexuality that we were being taught were just so destructive. My ex was taught that sex was his right, and a good woman would always be compliant, and we were trying to live up to these caricatured ideas of how a relationship works.

Even before she was married, Elham from Iran learned that society expected and allowed men to have sexual freedom in relationships. Her first engagement was broken because her fiancé fell in love with another girl. Her relatives said that this behaviour was to be expected from men—that girls but not boys were supposed to be celibate until marriage. Elham ended up marrying a man she thought would be the right person but he also cheated on her with other women and was not held accountable for it.
 
Binta from the Gambia had supportive parents and worked hard so she could finish school in the Gambia and then travel to the US to earn a bachelor’s degree. She has held a variety of development-oriented jobs and managed various projects to help the Gambia’s development and support Gambian girls and women. Yet she admits she was still a victim of marital rape and that she was told it was a sin to refuse your husband.
 
Several resource persons reported that their husbands withheld sexual relations even when they asked for it, and that this served as a type of sexual or emotional abuse for these women. For instance, Zahra from Iran never consummated her marriage; initially they were living with her in-laws and were not comfortable having intimate relations, then her husband forged a temporary marriage with a girlfriend and refused to have sexual relations with Zahra. Rafia from Bangladesh found that her physical relationship with her husband dissolved after she had a miscarriage and because of tensions over his failure to earn an income. She said they were not sexually intimate even when she pleaded with him, and said it was an obligation mandated by God, or when she flirted with him.