A rejoinder by Dr. Bonike Leigh to: How To Deal With Abusive Marriage

A rejoinder by Dr. Bonike Leigh to: How To Deal With Abusive Marriage

By Dr. Bonike Leigh Ed.D.

You raise an important and emotionally urgent conversation about intervention in abusive marriages, particularly the dangerous consequences of silence, passivity, and societal indifference. The article correctly identifies how abuse often thrives within cultures of secrecy, shame, fear, and social withdrawal, where victims are isolated while communities normalize non-interference under the banner of “mind your business.”

What resonates most with me is the recognition that abuse is rarely a purely private issue. Once harm, coercion, fear, intimidation, and violence enter a relationship, the consequences extend beyond two individuals. Families, children, workplaces, communities, and entire social systems become affected. Silence then stops being neutrality and begins functioning as complicity.

At the same time, I think this conversation requires careful nuance, particularly regarding how intervention itself is understood.

Not all intervention is automatically safe, ethical, or empowering for victims. In many abusive relationships, control already exists at psychological, emotional, financial, social, spiritual, and physical levels. Victims may already be navigating surveillance, threats, dependency, fear of retaliation, immigration vulnerabilities, religious pressures, economic instability, or concern for children. As a result, simplistic calls to “just leave” or “just speak up” can unintentionally underestimate the complexity and danger surrounding abusive situations.

This is where I think the article opens an important door for deeper reflection.

Many societies, including ours, have historically normalized certain forms of control within marriage under the language of culture, discipline, endurance, submission, respectability, or family preservation. In some cases, people are conditioned to see suffering as virtue and silence as maturity. Women especially are often socialized to prioritize maintaining the institution of marriage even at the expense of their emotional, psychological, or physical safety.

What concerns me deeply is how institutions sometimes reinforce this silence. Religious spaces, extended families, cultural systems, and even legal structures may unintentionally pressure victims toward endurance rather than protection. Victims are sometimes told to pray harder, be more patient, avoid embarrassment, protect the family image, or submit more fully, while the abusive dynamics themselves remain insufficiently addressed.

The article is correct that societal intervention matters. But intervention must move beyond reactive sympathy after tragedy occurs. It must involve building systems that genuinely protect vulnerable people before situations escalate.

That includes:
accessible shelters,
mental health support,
economic empowerment,
legal protections,
community education,
trauma-informed counseling,
responsive law enforcement,
and support systems that do not stigmatize victims for leaving harmful environments.

I also appreciate the challenge to the “mind your business” mentality. However, intervention should not become community surveillance or moral policing. It should center safety, dignity, autonomy, confidentiality, and informed support for the abused person.

Most importantly, I think we need to rethink how society defines strength within marriage.

Too often, endurance is celebrated more than safety.

Silence is praised more than honesty.
Preserving appearances becomes more important than preserving lives.

Healthy relationships should not require people to disappear psychologically in order to survive socially.

Ultimately, abusive marriages are not sustained merely by individual abusers. They are also sustained by systems of silence, normalized power imbalances, institutional failures, and cultural narratives that make it difficult for victims to seek help safely.

The real challenge before society is not simply encouraging intervention.

It is creating conditions where people can seek help without fear, shame, punishment, or isolation.

Let’s discuss