Traumatic bonding? Why some women shield abusive husbands
Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko. A viral video of Sonko confronting his son-in-law for allegedly beating his daughter has reignited a national debate on gender-based violence.
What you need to know:
A viral video of former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko confronting his son-in-law for allegedly beating his daughter has reignited a national debate on gender-based violence. GBV incident highlights that violence affects women across all social classes and mirrors lessons from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart on protecting women’s dignity.
- The Sonko episode illustrates broader structural issues around masculinity, cultural norms, and silence around domestic abuse, exposing hidden violence in affluent homes, the complexity of traumatic bonding, and the crucial role non-violent men play in confronting abuse.
- As the world marks the 16 Days of Activism Against GBV, the incident resonates with new WHO findings showing violence against women remains “alarmingly persistent” with no significant reduction in two decades—revealing a troubling stagnation in progress.
It is in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that Uchendu recalls the case of a man who beat up his wife only to be visited by her brothers who administered a sound thrashing to remind him that she was not defenceless. This anecdote demonstrates protection of women’s dignity, a principle enshrined in human rights law.
This story comes to mind following the viral video of Mike Mbuvi Sonko, the former governor of Nairobi, responding to a distress call by his daughter at night. The daughter’s story is that she was beaten for asking the husband about the children’s breakfast the next morning.
In the video, Sonko repeatedly asks his son-in-law: “Why have you beaten your wife?”. The beleaguered man retorts that he made a mistake. Sonko tells him that he will take his daughter away for a while but warns that should there be a repeat of the “mistake”, the son-in-law will experience his wrath.
This story brings up a number of lessons. Firstly, the first step in dealing with violence is to make it known. This creates public attention and leads to response. Secondly, violence affects women of all categories, social class notwithstanding. The episode reminds us of the once popular soap opera The Rich Also Cry, which showcased the vulnerability of the so-called celebrities behind their curtains of opulence. Violence against women in upper-class households is hidden, perhaps driven by deliberate measures to avoid social stigma. This means that most women in such families suffer in silence. Many resort to drug and substance abuse, ending up tragically, to the astonishment of the public.
Thirdly, the fact that violence knows no bounds makes it a strategic gender concern, defined as an issue rooted in structural foundations such as culture. Addressing such concerns is fundamental to breaking the cycle of inequality. Fourthly, the event reminds us about masculinity. In conventional discourse, this refers to standard notions of what it means to be a man. But scholarship has argued that there is no single universal masculinity. Rather, there are multiple masculinities in which there are violent and non-violent men. The latter are men who refuse to be bystanders but intervene to confront violence and its perpetrators, rescue the victims and take steps to mobilise and transform other men against the vice.
Fifthly, the case illustrates traumatic bonding where the violated defends the violator. In the case at hand, the wife is heard restraining one of the guards from meting out violence to the husband. Traumatic bonding is a paradoxical behaviour often seen in battered women turning against benefactors who have come to their rescue. Sixthly, Sonko did not ask the son-in-law why he beat up “my daughter” but rather why he brutalised “your wife”. The message is that he was not only intervening as a parent but also as a man responding to a crisis. This was an ingenious challenge to the man as to whether beating up a wife is manly, especially for asking about duty to his own children.
Sonko’s actions illustrate two principles of handling survivors. First is to remove the afflicted person from the source of violence to a separate physical space. Second is to provide first aid, often in the form of medical care and psychosocial support to enable the survivor to calm down.
In African communities, there is a reverential relationship with parents-in-law. This includes maintenance of a certain social distance that ensures privacy and respect, a fence only broken when things have gone beyond control. For a father-in-law to venture into his son-in-law’s abode late at night indicates this degeneration, but also the saying that necessity knows no law.
In the spirit of the Achebe anecdote, grooms should probably be reminded that the women they are marrying have families they can go back to. Brothers and cousins of the bride should make it clear that they will not hesitate to come to their maidens’ aid. The wedding ceremonies should insist on couples taking a vow of non-violence. Parents of both parties should categorically declare that they will not tolerate any violence. If this can deter a wife 's battery, so be it.
Coming at the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, this occurrence reminds us of the recently released World Health Organisation report on the current estimated prevalence of intimate partner and non-partner violence against women, which makes two worrying revelations. One is that “violence against women remains alarmingly persistent”. Two is that there has been no significant reduction in the prevalence of the vice over the past two decades. In other words, we have so far been in motion without movement!
The author is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya University ([email protected]).
