Daily Lessons from Life 27 November 2010 - Experts urge curbing domestic violence

Just an aside: Attended the wake of a Hwa Chong Junior College's school and basketball teammate. He died of heart failure yesterday. He used to be our leading long distance runner in the team. Tall, slender, fast and has loads of stamina. Such is the ficklery of life.

"Sat, Nov 27, 2010 - China Daily/Asia News Network: Experts urge curbing domestic violence

BEIJING, China - With 34.7 per cent of Chinese families reporting incidents of domestic abuse, Chinese marriage law experts on Thursday called for legislation on domestic violence.

'National legislation to combat domestic violence is badly in need, because existing articles of law do not provide a sufficient legal basis for timely and effective judicial intervention,' Li Mingshun, deputy head of the marriage and family board of the China Law Society, said at a conference in Beijing marking International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which fell on Thursday."

It is a difficult subject to talk about by the abused. Be it in China or USA. Man and woman entered in marriage to love and cherish each other and NOT for one to abuse the other. There are many reasons why a marriage breaks down and why some resort to violence against the other partner. Whatever the reasons, NONE are acceptable. Especially so for the physically stronger man to abuse the woman. Often time, the crimes are crimes of passion. Emotional responses rather than rational resposnes. The trick is to make sure that the emotion does not get to the 'out of control' stage rather than telling people NOT to abuse their partners.

Lessons for me are:

1. many couples fell in love and get married. What they need to understand is that love does not sustain a marriage. Mutual understanding, mutual respect, mutual learning to interact with each other and the mundane routines like teaching the kids when they come along, living with the in-laws, balancing the family budget, etc are required to maintain a marriage for a long term. A lifetime as some would point out!;

2. not many couples KNOW about the second part of what makes marriage work though. That is the problem and challenge. In some societies, the couples who intend to get married will need to go through a short pre-marriage training program to reflect about what their expectations are of a marriage and what an actual marriage may looks like. This is helpful though the effectiveness is suspect since at that stage the couples are in LOVE. 'Love is blind and marriage is the Institution for the Blinds' as someone once joked about it. I guessed it at least afford the couples a chance to think about it. Better than not having any!;

3. to tackle domestic violence, it will have to be a problems solving approach. Gathered the date, analyse the circumstances and evidence to identify what are the plausible causes for the abuse, zeroed in on the root causes and provide preventive/corrective actions accordingly. Hopefully the people responsible for helping the victims are equiped with this knowledge and skills.

May all marriages be blissful and in harmony as it should be. If things don't work out, may the parties involved are able to let go and recognized that marriage cannot be forced. It takes 2 to make it work.