Domestic violence, early literature reveals, is only a modern term that captures incidents of violent squabbles between mainly spouses at the home front. Prior to that, what existed were purely cases of wife beating.
From foreign to Nigerian writers, what was captured as domestic violence before now, are cases where husbands see it as their duty to teach their wives some lessons by beating the hell out of them.
From the few narratives I have here, it seems logical to trace the causes of such actions to mere pride and prejudice against women and from all the cases I am able to draw from, the solution aligns with the views of those who suggest that walking away on the part of the woman is the best option.
Let me start with a well known case as captured by American writer, Mario Puzo, in his best seller, The Godfather.
As the story goes, Don Corleone’s (the Godfather) only daughter, Connie was married to one Carlo Rizzi, who was her brother, Santino’s friend.
But probably due to her well heeled background, her husband finds her a bit uppity and ill-mannered leading to several misunderstandings after which she would go into tantrums smashing everything she sees in the house.
Rizzi, who was from a different background, would however not stomach such silly attitude borne out pomposity and would descend on her with blows till he is satisfied that he has taught her a lesson.
As Connie was from arguably the most influential Italian family based in the US at that time, she would put a call to her brother Santino (Sonny for short) who was described as highly temperamental and Sonny, without hesitation, would always rush to her house with his thugs and give her husband the beating of his life.
But the effect of such action and reaction would show later when it almost destroyed the Corleone family.
Santino did not know that as he continued in that course of action, that a certain rival family had taken note of his reactions, so, when they decided to get at the Corleone family for taking out one of their sons, they had a perfect plan worked out for them by a combination of Connie’s penchant to throw tantrums, her husband’s reaction and her brother’s anger.
All they did was to get the sister’s husband to descend on his wife again and as they anticipated, the lady, after the beating, put a call to her brother.
Sonny, on hearing his sister’s sobs at the other end, did not need further prompting; he jumped into his car at a time when no member of the family was supposed to move out of the family house, to teach Connie’s husband a lesson.
But this time, he did not go far as he fell into the trap set for him.
Screeching his car to a halt at an unexpected toll booth, as Sonny peeked to speak with the personnel on duty from the window, the young man rather than attend to him, quickly ducked and went under the desk.
Before Santino could realise what was happening, the button men (hit men if you like) of the rival family came all out from the opposite direction and rained his car with enough bullets to make sure that even if he reincarnates in another clime, memories of what pellets could do toa human body would be permanently etched on his psyche.
Coming back home, we see similar instances and consequences of wife beating.
In Chinua Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo committed sacrilege when he noticed that his youngest wife, Ojiugo, had left her hut to have her hair braided without having cooked dinner.
It was the week of peace and no form of violence was allowed.
But rrust Okonkwo, who detests anything that would make him appear week.
“He beats her for her negligence, shamefully breaking the peace of the sacred week in a transgression known as nso-ani,” and had to bear the consequence.
In another of Achebe’s works, Arrow of God, something similar to what transpired between Sonny Corleone and his brother-in-law also happened.
One of the daughters of Ezeulu, the Chief Priest, known as Akueke, had to be separated from her husband because of way he was beating her and the way her brother Obika, reacted.
“When Akueke returned home with her face swollen from a beating her husband had given her, he set up and went to the village of his brother-in-law. There, he not only beat her husband, Ibe, until he almost killed him, but he brought Ibe home tied to his bed. Obika set Ibe under a tree and told everybody not to touch him.
“There Ibe laid for some days until some of his kinsmen came to get an explanation.
“Ezeulu called his daughter Akueke to stand before them, to show off some of her scars. He wants to know why they allowed Ibe to treat her that way. They admit that Ibe was wrong and they don’t blame him much, but they still don’t think it as right to carry him off away from his home, away from the protection of his relatives.
“Ezeulu tried hard to make peace, but it doesn’t seem likely that they will ever return to reclaim Akueke.”
And that was how the marriage ended.
Conclusion: If only Connie had walked away, her brother and later, her husband who was killed when the Corleone family later established he was complicit in the murder of Sonny would not have been killed.
If Ojiugo had left Okonkwo, he would not have committed nsoani.
Obika inadvertently helped Akueke in taking the right decision though she had to live in her father’s house as a divorcee, but at least, no one ever beat again and she lived happily ever after.
