ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 20, 1997 TAG: 9704220123
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETTY STROTHER
SOURCE: BETTY STROTHER EDITORIAL WRITER
SHE POPPED into my office this past week, well-spoken, well-groomed, apparently well-educated. In her hand was a copy of an editorial I had written the day before: "Preventing domestic violence."
She was not angry; at least, she did not direct any hostility at me. But she was intense. She had something to say, and was determined to say it.
Her ex-husband is a lawyer who physically abused and terrorized her. He was smart enough to know how to do this without making any marks. And he kept her from leaving by threatening to take their children from her. Once the children were grown, she was out of the marriage. He has since moved out of town.
During divorce proceedings, she claimed he was at fault. The judge was dismissive, she said. He noted her professional accomplishments and asserted she could not be doing all that she was doing in her community if she had been through such torture.
As if a woman has no resilience.
She knows other women like her. Without mentioning names, she told of doctors, lawyers, even one clergyman - successful men, well-respected, sometimes beloved, in their communities, well-liked by colleagues - who abuse their wives. Or used to abuse former wives. And no one believes it happens.
I believe you, I told her. I do believe you. So does just about everyone, I'd wager - in the abstract. We've all heard of the person she described: "street angel, house devil." Only when someone attaches the name of a person we know to that description, someone who keeps his (sometimes her) sickness hidden behind a public mask of pleasant sociability, are an abused spouse's experiences hard to believe.
The editorial was a gingerly attempt to reassure battered women that, despite two double-slayings the week before, their communities no longer will tolerate domestic violence as a private matter. Some progress is being made against it. But women trying to assess whether their lives are in danger should be aware of several indicators, including an apparent pattern showing that "while abuse crosses all socioeconomic bounds, the lower an abuser's income and education, the more likely he is to do serious injury."
I'm guessing this sentence brought you here, I suggested to my visitor.
Yes, that and a comment about vigorous prosecution. While discussions of domestic violence always acknowledge that it "crosses all socioeconomic bounds," she complained, no one treats it as real at the upper end of the scale.
Prosecutors and judges must weigh evidence, though. If, as my visitor said, she never showed a trace of physical abuse, the judge in her divorce case would have only her accusations that her husband hurt and terrified her - accusations which he, of course, denied.
She could not prove her allegations. That does not mean they are not true. I believe them. So why, I asked Roanoke County Circuit Judge Diane Strickland, would a judge tell a woman that her story cannot be true because she shows no outward signs of her ordeal?
"It does present a challenge to a judge to fully accept that someone who is a pillar of the community is engaging in this activity," Strickland acknowledged. Wife battering is easier to believe of someone who has a drug- or alcohol-abuse problem. "If they have a list of stressors in their lives - they've lost a job, or a car, or their license - it's easier to say 'Yeah, this could be happening.'
"It's harder for somebody to see stressors that come from more hidden causes, or learned behavior from someone coming from a home" that appeared nice from the outside.
Appeared nice.
We know - or say we know - that appearances often are deceiving. Sometimes they hide evil. Sometimes they hide pain. We know this. Yet it is so hard to believe.
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