BWS, also commonly known as Battered Women Syndrome, is a psychological condition. The danger of Battered Women Syndrome is it can potentially lead to a condition most psychologist’s term as psychological paralysis ( Walker, 2017). Psychological paralysis is a state where victims become defeated, depressed, and they believe that they cannot leave their partners even though they go through physical, mental, and sometimes even emotional abuse.
Battered women syndrome is currently acknowledged in law by many states. This condition is mostly used when defending victims who injure or kill their husbands after experiencing abusive relationships. Courts may sometimes cogitate that women who have BWS are justified to have attacked their abusive husbands and that their husbands were of imminent danger to their wellbeing ( Walker, 2017) . In regards to Francine Hughes in the movie The Burning Bed , she was justified of killing her husband. The battered women syndrome defense acted in favor of the wife not to sentence her on the grounds of murdering her abusive husband. However, I believe that such victims sometimes use this line of thought as an escape route from the responsibilities of owning up the heinous acts that they impose on their husbands which are sometimes for self-interests.
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A similar case that has been tried in court was one for a lady, Barbara Sheehan. Barbara was tried and found not guilty of second-degree murder. She had shot her husband who was a retired police eleven times at their home in New York in 2008. Barbara attested that she had been through so much in the marriage with her husband. Repeated abuse made Barbara commit murder. She claimed that she had refused to go to Florida with her husband, which aggravated her husband threatening her with a gun. A few hours later, Barbara got the courage and shot her husband using two pistols. The court found that she was not guilty of shooting her abusive husband, but the judge prosecuted her for illegal possession the second gun. This case is unique in the sense that even though the judge did not convict Barbara of murder, she prosecuted her for another offense that took place at the same time as the shooting. The victim, in this case, did not fully get justice for her actions. The judge of this case described Barbara as an aggressive and confident woman. However, the judge stated that Barbara had confessed to being inept and prone to accidents which led to the suggestion that the injuries that Barbara had were most likely self-inflicted. As such, the reason why Barbara had stayed in the marriage was that she was not physically abused in the past. The reason she killed her husband was that she despised him and their long sexless marriage.
In some marriages, most men face a similar scenario ( Walker, 2017) . Since the world widely condemns domestic abuse, most men do not come to the open stating their abusive marriages. Continuous misunderstanding and inability to speak of such domestic violence have led to depression and sometimes deaths. Even though abuse and violence to men are there, we may not get to hear about them most often since the world does not advocate for abuse of men by women. Also, the ego of most men plays a huge role in covering such acts.
References
Walker, L. E. (2017). The battered woman syndrome . New York: Springer Publishing Company.
