Today’s post is a little story with huge implications.
Once there was a poor crazed wife whose cat had five kittens. How sweet they were, how precious! The joy they added to her life–and to their mother’s life–was immeasurable. How they helped offset the pain of her husband’s crazy-making! Each day, for wonderfully blissful moments, genuine love imbued her home. Warmth and wonder filled the rage-riddled rooms. Cuddling these five precious lives, her life was a lot less bleak.
Not so, for her Crazy-Making Husband. The joy he witnessed was unbearable. How dare they all share love, when in his heart there was nothing but cold stone? For months he bullied and badgered his poor crazed wife. “Get RID of them!” he’d bellow, at midnight. “You and those f—– cats!”
And though they had room, and acres of land to support these wonderful lives, and though she had ample funds to provide for their nurture and healthcare, shaken and scared, unable to bear his incessant emotional beatings, at last the poor crazed wife ‘permitted’ her Crazy-Making Husband to take the five tiny kittens to an animal shelter.
“What is your problem — it’s all perfectly legal,” shouted The Crazy-Making Husband, when his wife cried out in grief. Since it’s legal, he argued, there’s nothing wrong with what he did.
For if it’s legal, it’s ethical — yes? *
It’s ethical to steal five tiny innocent lives from their mother, and render them homeless. It’s ethical to leave them at a animal shelter, surrendering them to who-knows-what future. It’s ethical to rob your wife of the tiny bundles of joy that buttress her from slipping into insanity from your crazy-making.
Ask The Crazy-Making Husband. He’ll tell you. It’s legal, so it’s perfectly fine.
Their mother, five days later, cannot stop screaming, searching high and low for her lost babies. While I, as grief-stricken as she, contemplate this story’s grave implications, when it comes to life with The Crazy-Making Husband.
For, in this ‘culture’ that humans have constructed, it is perfectly legal to murder your wife’s Spirit with emotional, mental, spiritual, and financial abuse. It is perfectly legal to bully her. It is perfectly legal to rage at her, humiliate her, and chronically squash her sense of self.
Despite her clearly evident suffering, it’s perfectly legal to confiscate her meager scraps of joy.
Here in America, if it’s legal, it’s ethical, yes?
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* Note: For phrasing this question, I am grateful to Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center.
