Day Four 16 days - Silenced

One of the cleverest things society has managed to do is silence women on the subject of domestic abuse and violence. It has been orchestrated that women often somehow feel complicit in and shame for the abuse they have suffered. Over and over again we hear stories of the women who feel that they are to blame for their own abuse, by either causing it to happen through their own 'behaviour', or through staying with an abusive partner. Neither of these are true. The only person to blame is the perpetrator. A woman could cheat on her husband and still not deserve to be beaten. She may deserve the end of her marriage but never the end of her life. The fault lies with the abuser and the abuser alone.

Women have been demonised for millennia to justify the atrocious acts of husbands over wives. Laws have been passed to keep women subjugated, some changing only as recently as the 1990s when in 1991 marital rape was finally recognised as a crime. Until then sex was considered the 'right' of the spouse, rendering any claim to non-consensual sex (aka rape) moot. In fact in accordance with coverture (whereby the woman wasn't actually a separate legal identity outside of her husband), rape could not be committed since one could not be charged with raping oneself. Coverture has ultimately been slowly eroded but the traditions and systemic beliefs seem to persist. Prosecution of domestic abuse has fallen despite the Domestic Abuse Act being passed in 2021 so the law is there but implementation and attitudes are trailing far behind.

I'm currently doing a bible study (buy here) written by Claudine Roberts, former human rights lawyer and all round inspiring woman I must add. The study will no doubt come up again over these 16 days but I wanted to draw your attention to week four where she unpacks the horrific story of the unnamed concubine (Judges 19). She is 'owned' by the Levite, she has no autonomy and lives a controlled and abused existence under his hand. She makes an attempt to leave, is subsequently not protected by her own father and is later raped, brutalised and murdered. The Levite was from a tribe established as priests, he was probably well thought of in his town and yet he treated this woman, this beloved child of God, as a piece of inanimate property. Judges is a harrowing story of what happens when the law is not submitted to. 

These were a people who had heard the ten commandments. They had lived under the blessing of God for so long but had departed and chosen to live their own way, satisfying only their own desires. When the desires of self become more important than the continuation of a society built on the foundations of love and justice, this is what happens. Women became property, men thought nothing of demanding the handing over of a body to be brutalised and this upstanding man thought nothing of handing her over. 

This woman was unheard. She was domestically abused by the man who was meant to provide a cover of protection. She was neglected by her father who was meant to love her. She was let down by a society which had laws but they chose not to implement them. Does that sounds familiar? Dear God save us from ourselves but most of all save women from the tyranny of those men who see women as property to be possessed. Raise up people in law and government who will implement the law meaningfully and mark a change in culture that says women never have been and will never be possessions but individuals worthy of life and love simply for being born.