Abusive Relationships, Patterns of Violence, the Future of the Family
Part 1

Some women remain in abusive relationships for different reasons. Some are scared to leave. Others feel that they still love the person so to leave because they are being abused would be wrong. Some see the abuse as a trade-off that comes with the security the person provides, such as money, shelter, etc. Sometimes there is a co-dependency and the person feels that life would not be any better without the person because there is going to be abuse in life no matter what. Women sometimes think they deserved it or that they made the person upset and that it was just for the man to beat or abuse them.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2017), African American women are the most likely to suffer from abuse, as 40% of black women experience violence from a partner. The characteristics of these women who are most likely to be abused is that they come from single-parent homes, broken homes, bad communities, poor socio-economic backgrounds, and drugs, alcohol and violence are part of their lives, so it is almost like it is expected: they may have had abusive childhoods, so they do not expect anything different in adulthood. They typically do not have a strong social support system.

Plus the media plays up this type of life as though it is normal. Black culture is full of examples of this kind of life, from hip hop music to TV shows and films—the lives of people tend to reflect the media that shapes them, so it is not surprising. Media plays a big part in cultivating communities. When the media is all showing the same negative images and stereotypes, people’s lives are impacted, and the culture of many African Americans is negatively impacted by these images. That is why it is so important for positive images to be presented in the media. Without them, more women are likely to continue to think this kind of abuse is normal and they will go on living with it.

Part 2

The most influencing factor impacting the future of the family will be culture. As the culture of today becomes more and more open to cohabitation, childbirth outside of marriage, and more closed off to the principles and values of religion, the family itself is going to change more and more. Today’s families tend to be mixtures of previously families that busted up: the busted up families get together with other busted up families and form mixed families. The traditional family unit is in decline because the morals and mores that defined the traditional family unit and disappearing from the modern culture. Media celebrates the homosexual family as though it were just as good if not better than the old traditional family unit. It does not matter that homosexuals cannot procreate because the culture has already accepted the idea of sex-without-procreation as normal and healthy.

It did that when it embraced birth control, which was actually set up by Margaret Sanger, who was a racist and eugenicist and wanted to use birth control to control the population of blacks and undesirables or “deplorables” as they are called today (Grossu, 2014; Reilly, 2016). But people began to like the idea of having sex without consequences. Sex without procreation became more and more popular as more and more people abandoned religion. Or they simply changed their religious principles and doctrines to accommodate the new lifestyles of the modern world. Even the Catholic Church hopped on that bandwagon in the 1960s when it held the Second Vatican Council in an effort to update the Church’s teachings to be more compatible with the modern world, as though that were somehow...…than elder abuse, most people could not say how or in what situation this might happen.

These interventions that do exist can be helpful but it is really the case that more is needed—but what is the problem. More interventions are unlikely to have any impact unless they are striking in the right way. What is really needed is preventive medicine. Abuse is a problem in cultures that are decaying. Abuse does not occur in healthy cultures or societies because the people have been raised and taught to respect life, to respect others, and to be fair and just in one’s dealings.

Today’s culture is very inhumane and does not teach people to respect others or to respect oneself. It is all about Egoism and people feeling like they are entitled. If they do not get their way, they feel they have a right to let the whole world know about it, and if they want to oppress or abuse someone else then that is their right because they think the entire universe revolves around them. The culture has taught them to think that they are important and all that matters most in this world is their own will. They are taught to believe that they are the best, that they are perfect, and that everyone else needs to accept their will. Abuse happens when their will is not accepted.

There is no intervention for this but an intervention that gets to the cultural ill that is affecting society and the family and the individual. The education has become too liberal and rooted in modern philosophy. It needs to get back to first principles, to character education, to Plato and Aristotle so that children can grow up knowing what is virtuous and what is wrong. This is the only intervention that will really work in the long run.

References

Grossu, A. (2014). Margaret Sanger,…