“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘Well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term.’”
~ J.D. Vance
Earlier this year, the Taliban revised its penal code to allow for domestic abuse. The law might not outright state that, but that’s the intention. The Guardian reported a judge in northern Afghanistan told a woman seeking divorce from her husband who beat her with a cable wire: “You want a divorce just because of that? A little anger and a few beatings won’t kill you.”
A husband who beats his wife faces only 15 days in prison — and only if the beating causes a broken bone, open wound, or visible bruise, and only if she can prove it to a judge. Otherwise, beatings are totally legal. Meanwhile, if a woman decides she doesn’t enjoy getting beaten flees to her parents’ house without her husband’s permission, she gets three months in prison. Her family gets the same sentence for sheltering her.
People like J.D. Vance present the American version of this, couched as obvious common sense. Families ought to stick it out, right? For the kids? Right?
Except the burden of “sticking it out” lands on the woman every single time. White Christian nationalists like Vance and others want to eliminate no-fault divorce. This would force women to prove that their husbands are at fault for emotion, physical, and sexual violence.
Do you see the connection? What if there are no bruises? Or what if the judge views the marriage as Vance does? Perhaps, they might conclude, the wife was disruptive to the marriage. Maybe she refused sex. Maybe she didn’t agree with the husband.
The violence, our hypothetical judge might conclude, was justified and, again, no bruises! Hardly even abuse.
Sam Osterhout and Andra Watkins connect the dots in their weekly peek behind the curtains of WCN.
Let us know what you think in the comments — and what Sam and Andra should cover next.
