Domestic Violence: Theological issues

When I was working in the domestic violence clinic, we worked with a woman who was very close to leaving her abusive husband. But when he got wind of it, he went and got their priest, who talked her out of it, telling her she had to abide by the vows she'd made on her wedding day.

Here is a quote from Jesus that I think applies very well to this situation. The Pharisees, instead of taking care of their parents in their old age, give all their money away to charity to avoid their responsibility. Jesus point out that they are breaking God's law in favor of their own tradition. In the same way, making a woman put up with abuse for the sake of vows is abusing the law of God--to honor and cherish human life--for a human tradition. Not to say that marriages aren't sacred, but it is an extreme perversion of the marriage vows to use them as a spiritual prison to hold a child of God captive for continued abuse.

I've also heard stories about clergy telling abused women to endure their suffering as a way of participating in Christ's suffering. This is bullshit. God suffers with us, but that doesn't mean God wants us to suffer. I think it might be a better exercise to remind an abuser that every time they beat their spouse, they are also beating Jesus.

Christian teaching for many hundreds of years has emphasized self-sacrificing love. But the case of domestic violence reveals the flaws in this emphasis, when the sacrifice is demanded only from the less powerful. A healthy person, assured of God's love and their worth as a sacred person, will be able to freely choose to place others' needs before their own. But this should spring voluntarily from abundance, not be forced by violence from meager stores.