The Monster in the Kitchen

 

By: Victoria G. Smith

 

It stared at her from across her kitchen—
that monster of stainless steel and china,
full of baked grease and dried sauces:
dregs of battles at the dinner table.

She doesn’t know when she first felt it:
this knowledge of the unspoken.
She just knew it was there—like a worm
in her heart slowly eating,
till only her ghost was there:
pale vision of youthful dreams.

She stares at raisin fingers—watching
the lights play on her ring:
symbol of eternal vows given,
eternal as dirty dishes in the sink.

She weeps as one weeps for a lover lost.
How fragile love is! When spent, emotions
align with the light of recognition,
and the soul cries out for relief.

How many degrees of death has a marriage?
No one knows, save the bereaved. The changes
come in tiny drops poured into the soul,
invisible to the eye, until they spill.

What must I do to reclaim what’s mine?
“Give me an offering,” growled the monster.
With a flick of a switch, metal grated
upon metal, devouring the lights
off of her finger

Poet’s Notes: Above poem is an imagined, fictionalized scene where a wife realizes her marriage is a sham, inspired by my own experience. This is a timely poem to publish. For during this month, my American husband and I joyfully celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. We’ve been married to each other almost six times longer than we were married to our first spouses.

It’s no little achievement especially when one considers that many of my family and friends were critical of this marriage at the start. I forgave them their initial judgementalism, understanding that being devout Catholics, they were naturally opposed to my separation and eventual divorce from my first husband who was both also Filipino and Catholic. Thus, they were likewise opposed to my remarriage. It didn’t seem to matter that the Catholic Church granted an annulment of my first marriage. This thing was just not done in my family, and being the woman, I was immediately blamed by some for the failure of my first marriage under the traditional mentality that a marriage’s security rests largely upon the wife’s shoulders and responsibility, so that when a marriage fails, it is surely the wife’s fault, for she must not have done everything to please her husband or save the marriage. I won’t even waste words trying to debunk such belief beyond calling this the plainly sexist, ridiculous attitude that it is, but what I want to do here is to advocate for divorce in my native country, the Philippines, which apparently remains the only country in the world that does not have a divorce law. I was fortunate: I was brought to circumstances that allowed me to procure a divorce in the United States of America from my first husband. For the precious freedom the United States gave me, I rejoice and declare, God bless America! Yet I also remain cognizant of, and therefore both sad and grateful of the fact that I am among the few lucky ones among my people in this regard.

I am also not the first to write about the travesty of the Philippines being the only country that does not allow for divorce. For instance, another Filipina, Ms. Ana P. Santos, wrote a very good article on this issue in Atlantic.com recently. Her thoughtful and engaging essay can be found at: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/06/divorce-philippines-annulment/ 396449/?utm_source=SFFB.

To me, for a country to refuse and consistently fail to pass a divorce law is nothing less than a gross denial of a basic human right: the right to freedom of association. To me, the latter right does not only cover the freedom to join and not to join associations (as in social or political organizations), but includes the most basic freedom to choose our most intimate of associations—our most personal relationship, that is, to choose whom we marry and to whom we remain married. After all, it is with our spouse to whom we are bound both by law and custom to share all our earthly goods, including our bodies. Nothing can be more intimate than that! Only in recent years has it been recognized that sex without consent in a marriage is rape. Nonetheless, one can imagine the continuing dangers to which we expose one or either of the partners in a marriage to all sorts of abuse when we force both to remain married even after the marriage has gone terribly bad. Marital sex, when it reaches this sad point, becomes not an act of commitment but an act of control. What greater way to exercise power over, and to shame a spouse than to subject her or him to sexual assault or to force such spouse to perform an act condoned as an obligation under the canopy of the marriage bed? Women are particularly vulnerable to such risks not only because they are often physically weaker in fighting off such assault, compounded by the problem of not having the social support system to protect themselves from abusive husbands. Moreover, marital sexual assault, especially in a country like the Philippines that blindly follows the Catholic Church’s prohibition of the most simple, rational, and scientifically efficacious birth control methods, results in risks to the wife’s health not only from the assault itself, but by the pregnancies that could result therefrom that the wife is then forced to carry to term, which thereafter often includes the main responsibility for the care and education of the children on mostly meager resources. This vicious cycle of abuse and depravity fomented by a social and legal system that doesn’t allow divorce is endless.

The injustice is even more laid to bare when we consider that we human beings are not static, perfect beings. Therefore, our laws should not expect us to be such nor be based on such a palpably false assumption. The persons we were at the start of a marriage change over time—as is the natural inclination for living creatures who evolve or devolve, as the case may be. Or sometimes, we find we were mistaken in our understanding of the person we married, discovering this only after we have lived with the person for some time, after having shared the most intimate aspects of our personhood. Then again, the failure of a marriage is often not even the fault of one or either of the spouses. It just happens. It just is. Thus, the basic rationale and humaneness of the “no-fault divorce” in civilized states.

And here lies the fault of the current legal system that prevails in the Philippines: one has to prove fault in one or the other spouse—mainly, to prove that one or the other is insane! They call it a “civil annulment,” but it is neither civil nor a true annulment. For in order to procure one, the spouse seeking annulment has to prove that either she or her spouse was psychologically incompetent to enter into the marriage state, in other words—crazy! And indeed, the way the Philippines allows the implementation of such a crazy system is even crazier: Basically, it’s a long-drawn-out process that only the rich can afford. One has to have enough money either to pay a lawyer and/or bribe the judge. Those who cannot afford this process nor have the nerve to go through this horrendous experience simply default to living a life without integrity: husbands procure and maintain mistresses (as do a significant number of Philippine legislators and government officials), and wives have affairs or lovers. (Or, creative husbands convert into Islam in order to be allowed multiple wives.) And the most harmed in this process? The children. The hapless young ones are relegated to a life with frequently fighting parents under the most abusive conditions, or being declared illegitimate due to the annulment of their parents’ marriage. And this is where the term “annulment’ is facetious. For the legal meaning of an annulment is that the marriage never happened because the spouses were not legally competent to enter into the marriage, and thus, any children borne out of that nonexistent marriage must be bastards. But the non-existence of the marriage is nothing more than a legal fiction, a concept invented in the law that is nothing more than a pretense to keep the otherwise unfeasible philosophical constructs of the term viable within its own pretend world. The trouble is, this legal fiction has very real, harmful consequences especially for the innocent. How can one say a marriage never happened and deny all its obvious consequences, no matter if there are innocent third parties—i.e., the children— who will thus be gravely injured by its denial?

Of course, it is well-known that one big reason the Philippines consistently refuses to pass a divorce law is that due to its electorate being almost eighty-five (85%) per cent Catholic (who are opposed to divorce under the canons of the Catholic Church), Philippine legislators are afraid to antagonize their voters by attempting to propose such a legislation in the first place (despite the fact that many of them privately agree it is the right and rational thing to do). This is not only hypocritical but also ironic, considering the Catholic Church itself allows for annulment under less stringent conditions than what the Philippine civil law system requires! In fact, it is easier to get a church annulment of a marriage compared to a legal annulment. Sadly, even those Filipino Catholics who have church-annulled marriages still can’t remarry legally under another legal canon—that of the supposed separation of church and state. But this is yet again another legal fiction, considering that many Philippine legislators and government officers unashamedly act and declare their Catholic or Christian religious beliefs as the basis for their programs and actions.

Clearly, the Philippine legal system that denies divorce is completely irrational and unjust. It is also immoral not only because it is unjust,but because it is a lie that can only stand on other lies. A system that is based on a lie makes its people liars. Fellow Filipinos—do you agree and accept that we are a nation of liars and hypocrites? If not, then please join me in lobbying the Philippine Congress to pass a rational and humane divorce law now. For those who have good marriages— good for you, and may God continue to bless you! But to those who have not been as blessed or lucky, let us demonstrate compassion (which is a very Christian thing to do) by helping to build an even more compassionate Philippine society that gives every human being the right and freedom to avail of other chances in love and life to attain true peace and happiness.

To those who choose to devolve into religious or moralistic judgementalism—in other words, “bigotry”, to continue opposing such a law, some food for thought and soul: like the poem above states, only the aggrieved in the death of a marriage know the many deaths they endure in bad marriages. You cannot presume to know or decide for them what is best for them. But the Holy Book is clear: “Judge not, lest you be judged. Let those among you who is without sin throw the first stone.” Now, that’s certainly a rock to chew on. (Copyright © 2015 by Victoria G. Smith