Where do you find the strength to hit a woman?
Men never hit women, children or animals, unless they are cowards.
He was handsome, muscled, and a police officer. There is something about the men in cobalt blue. They are, as we all know, overworked and underpaid. Some are angels in uniform, honourable men, sacrificially serving, and bravely protecting the civilians. Others are, well, the kind that you wish Karma truly never forgets their address. They have demanded a bribe about your faulty backlight and threatened you with a false charge. You expected justice when a matatu hit you but they let it go after a high-five with the driver.
Anyway, one thing we cannot do is begrudge a police officer’s loyalty and expertise on the job, even if we wish. “We are the first to be called when a body is found and the last to be thanked when a crime is averted.” A police officer once lamented.
Some weeks ago, I was at a police station recording a crime and being a nosy writer while at it. A man had been summoned for an assault accusation. He had beaten his wife blue and black. The said woman looked traumatised, to say the least. It was also evident that this was not the first time that she had to bear this kind of abuse. Her emotional sister confirmed it when she said, “Huyu! Atamuua!” This was now a police case because the victim, who had lost teeth and dignity, also had a broken rib and heaven knew what else was damaged inside her. She had a medical report.
I looked at the said man in disdain. He looked decent enough, the kind I probably would have said yes to, if he had asked me out to coffee. The culprit was good-looking by all standards, dark complexion, a beard well-trimmed, and a musky scent of cologne floated around him. “Unachapa mama ya watoto wako? Umekosa wanaume wenzanko?” Don’t you love it when a police officer uses criminal psychology on a criminal?
The man’s short temper promptly shot up, his eyes looking red, as if he had just smoked some herb. He puffed and huffed. Wrong move. “Unataka kuchapa officer?” The police officer asked, chuckling.
The man quickly cowered when the police officer, walked up to him, closing the personal space that two sane males should observe, at least in a public place.
“Men never hit women, children or animals, unless they are cowards.”
The police officer said, as if keen on pressing the trigger buttons of the man.
“Where do you find the strength to beat a woman like this, your wife, the mother of your children?” An elderly gentleman asked him.
The man threw the elderly gentleman a dirty look and sneered. He was about to be humbled. I left before I could witness the moment of humbling, when the officer usually shouts, “Toa kiatu moja!”
Inside a jail cell, this man would meet real men. I went away thinking, if only this was a movie, I would have served myself a glassful of a Merlot and sat back to savour everything.
There is something fundamentally wrong with a man who only results in violence during a dispute with his wife. It is one thing for men to engage in war on a battlefield with fellow men – testosterone, muscles, and all – but it is a whole other issue when a man hits a woman, nay beats his wife. That is just base, a low of the lows. Shady. You know that it is already an unfair fight. She has no physical strength to fight him back. It is a violation of her gender and an indication that an abusive man has low emotional intelligence. He is a little boy stuck in a grown-up man’s body, emotionally stunted.
My community is falsely labelled as being short-tempered, but wife-beating was and is still frowned upon. A man who was known to beat his wife or children would be cornered by his age mates and honoured with a thorough thrashing. Maybe, like the officer said, our legal system should device a way to let men deal with such a man, the manly way.
Karimi is a wife and mother who believes marriage is worth it.
