“Where were you last night? Where were you last night? You want knock me, you knock me,” the woman saying this was speaking to a man; she had grabbed his collar and was tugging and hitting him as she fired off the questions.
“Loose me hand! I said, where were you last night? I want a answer to that question now! You can’t knock me! You can’t knock me!” she was almost screaming as she delivered some blows to his body with an object she was holding. “Knock me! Where were you last night?” The entire performance took place in open public.
The video was shared on Facebook and there were several calls, from mostly women, for the woman to be arrested and locked up.
To be clear, it was a clear case of domestic violence with a woman as the perpetrator.
By the time I saw the video it had been viewed by over 7,000 persons.
The video opened with the woman grabbing the man’s jersey and slamming him into a wall even as he attempted to wriggle out of her grip. She had what looked like a small stick in her hand, which she also attempted to hit him with.
They were just outside of what looked like a market stall and persons were passing by. She asked, “Where were you last night?” and then went on to inform him that their son had a near-death experience since the fever “fly up in he head and he nearly die” she also noted that it was the fourth time he had slept out.
She slammed him into the wall again and then delivered a stinging slap to his face. He said, “Girl, stop nah girl,” and she answered with the slap telling him not to tell her to stop. Initially, none of the passersby intervened though some men made comments.
One man asked her if she was her husband’s mother.
“I am his wife,” she responded, “this is the fourth time he sleep out in two months and he have no time for his kids. He has no time for me.”
She asked her husband again, “Where were you last night?” as she hit him again.
Another man remonstrated with her that she could not “embarrass the man like that.”
Yet another man stopped and told her to stop but she answered, “Hello! You stay out of this. I with this man since I was 18 and I am 27, we have two kids together.”
Another passerby told the man who intervened to take the object from her, but she told him to “move from here” and he asked her if she was going to hit him too. This stranger finally got the stick away from her, but she then administered a flurry of slaps to her husband’s face even as the men around them told him to hold her hands.
He finally held both of her hands and forcibly pushed her out of the range of the person who was filming the incident.
“It’s a shame… abuse can never stop. All the onlookers and no one reach out to put a stop to her abusive behaviour. I guess it was entertaining to see a woman beating a man. If it was the other way around it would have been a different script to a different play,” was the comment of a man on Facebook.
“This woman needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law!! I laud his patience!” another man said.
“I do not support any form of abuse. This woman is clearly provoking the man. No one should stay in such a toxic relationship. Hope they both get the help they need before things escalate and they end up killing each other and then who will take care of the kids,” was one woman’s input to the over 70 comments under the video.
“He right not to go home… who wants to go home to that kinda treatment?” another woman added.
Another said, “Could not be the first time. I laud him for not retaliating. Abuser.”
Some made jokes out of how well the woman spoke even though she was in a fit of anger. One person commented on the fact that no one really stopped and intervened and for them that was the “saddest part of the video.”
“So, let’s say this was on the flip side there would have been an outcry of domestic violence against the woman. Regardless why he slept out gives her no right to put her hands on him,” another woman said.
“Ya gah go in d house to c where it leakin… ppl painting her as crazy person but yal don’t no wuh e putting duh women through that made her lash out at him… I’m not upset she hit him… it’s just that it should have been dealt with privately… but men dese days need dem embarrassment to get dey @#$% together… ders so much a woman could take,” a woman commented.
This was among the few comments that empathized with the woman.
The following comment, made by a woman, is very long but I wanted to share it because this person took some time to look at the issue from various angles.
“What she needs to know man have to be man, abuse must be too much in the home that’s why the man don’t be at home, she want play man and woman well I guess she can run the home by herself. Yes it’s your husband and y’all have kids together and he needs to respect that but your action in public shows a lot, if you doing this in public to him I don’t want see what u dose be doing home to him… is all you cause u have the man running and sleeping out… you said it’s your husband but it more look like your son the way you have him… and with all and all he did not hit her back… sometimes it too much at home with her and he can’t take it, maybe he sleep at a next woman, maybe in the streets, maybe at his parents or even in the bar… I don’t know the story no one knows the story but she wrong to deal with him in that way… yes, your son sick but a strong woman don’t wait and look on a man when it come to her child or children, if I was her I forget where he is and rush my child to the hospital… the hell was him. Now if you had lash him or hit him in his temple and he fall and die u was going to jail for life and your kids would have left without both parents you need to think before u act… come on women we need to be more strong in today’s society…”
I do not subscribe to any form of abuse regardless of the perpetrator. And while I know there should be no buts when it comes to domestic violence, I cannot help but feel some sympathy for the woman who was in obvious emotional pain. The couple is in obvious trouble and needs some form of counselling or maybe even to separate, if just for a period.
Let’s not bash our sister. While she needs to face the consequences of her actions, a little sympathy would go a long way and she definitely needs help.
