Do We Take Vows To Become Domestic Abusers?

I read an article in the newspaper about a wealthy man and his wife found dead in their bed after the man called 911. It was considered to be a murder-suicide. Another article reports, "A machete welding man made good on a threat to get back at his ex-girlfriend when he ambushed her and viciously hacked her to death in Harlem..." I can't turn around without hearing new incidents several times a day regarding domestic violence.

These words included in some marriage vows, "love, honor and cherish," have deteriorated into, 'love until I loathe you, honor until I disrespect you, and cherish until I can't stand looking at your face any longer." Domestic violence acts are on a critical upsurge with incidents becoming more volatile in nature.

"Until death do you part," literally is being taken to an utterly absurd new meaning, because men are brutalizing, murdering wives and girlfriends as if it's second nature. Every day you hear another disturbing incident regarding an enraged man battering or sexually abusing a woman, murdering and maybe even decapitating a body to get rid of the evidence. Men are returning home, falling to sleep and getting up to go about their daily lives until their degenerate behavior is hopefully discovered. Not to say women aren't performing acts of domestic abuse but it's to a lesser degree or less known, because men tend to shy away from speaking about female abusers.

Can anyone explain why domestic rage is on the rise? Marriage once was intended to last until death due you part. Some may say our lives were shorter at the time but marriage was respected, had a sense of moral values. Today this has fallen to the wayside with more individual's deciding to cohabitate rather than go for that marriage certificate. Having children without the benefits of marriage is also accepted as the norm. Our entire moral climate has shifted.

Does this fact make it easier for us to turn our backs when we notice couples displaying exhibits of violence in public, cursing and physical assaulting each other? Do we intervene or walk away and continue our day without thinking about what we've seen? Is the news that a woman's decapitated body was found in a shallow grave something we can brush aside like seeing road kill? Do we look at a woman with a black eye and handprints on her face and not question it?

I can't even comprehend the mind set of someone who can beat or butcher another human, someone you loved, who can continue living without feeling a real sense of remorse or some emotion of being destroyed.

Has our society fallen that far back into a primitive animalistic society? Even the animal kingdom has boundaries, only battling and killing for food or survival. How can we accept the battering or slaughtering of another human because someone's depraved?

I'd like to believe most sane women don't enter a relationship or marry knowing one day their partner is going to be capable of abusive behavior. What sane woman wants a relationship with someone who belittles them, curses at them, physically and sexually assaults them? I sincerely hope these women are capable of reaching out for help, or at least have one friend who has the smarts to acknowledge the abusive relationship and help them to see the light and race for the door.

As for our judicial system rendering out sentences for domestic abuse crimes, aren't they being too lenient? You can batter a woman and only receive a slap on the wrist and an order to take a few anger management classes. How many times have, "order of protections," meant, "order to kill," because perpetrators ignore a piece of paper that states, "Stay fifty feet away?" Enraged males stalk their victim's homes, work sites or family and friend's homes, all to get that chance to dole out more abuse. How many women have been attacked in supposedly safe places while other people surround them? By the time police receive the call and check for an order of protection, the perpetrator has plenty of time to harm their intended victim and flee the scene.

"Joel Steinberg," performed hideous acts of violence on his mate, brutally assaulted and killed a child, served his sentence and is now free. A child's gone from this earth and a woman has permanent emotional and physical scars, but he's free to live his life at a relatively young age. You can get more jail sentence time for a drug charge rather than a severe domestic abuse case. Sometimes victims are too fearful to confront their attacker so they walk, free to continue with their abusive behavior.

If we look hard at our domestic abuse laws, make the sentences harsher, would this curtail incidents? If we made it mandatory that in every incident of suspected abuse, both parties have to attend therapy, would this prevent future incidents?

How do we teach women to notice red flags before they enter a serious relationship? How do we help raise the self-esteem of women and make them feel secure enough to leave an abusive situation? Do we start in school by having classes on what a normal male-female relationship should be? Do we teach our young children, both boys and girls, what is accepted and what isn't in a relationship and how to get out of something that doesn't feel right without being harmed?

Our world's a violent place, with video games and television displaying inappropriate relationships and violence. Our children spend endless hours staring at this material, molding their brains into believing a woman should be called names or be assaulted for kicks? When they reach the age of dating can this contribute to an abusive dating relationship, because teen dating abuse is on the rise?

Looking back in history, women have come a long way besides being property with men having all the rights. Still there are cultures today who consider women to be second class citizens, or even property. This male mindset, does this set up domestic abusive relationships in our country? Are we just born violent? Can marriage continue with any sense of respect towards each other or is marriage a dying breed, because divorce rates are rising?

I know when I look in the newspapers today or watch television news tonight, there'll be more stories about another domestic abusive relationship, whether a male or female victim. I don't have the answers to stop this, just believe we need to keep this subject out there in the open, communicate with each other, and stand up and take a vow against domestic abuse.