There is also the fact that 'abuse' is actually a term used rather widely. The US has a number of domestic violence centers. They are almost all exclusively for women, though there are actually a fairly large percentage of households that experience domestic violence where the woman is violent. She's usually smaller, but if she's constantly hitting you, violently waking you up, or if she's got a knife...and you go to jail if you hold her back or restrain her, that's a dangerous situation. DV centers are typically run by feminists based on feminist philosophy. Many of them rely on the Duluth Model, which extrapolates the attitudes and actions of one morally and mentally messed up man to all abusive men. There is also the 'divorced wheel' model which includes quoting scriptures on submission as abusive behavior. The man controlling the family purse strings may be considered abusive behavior. I've seen some DV literature. Women may be taught that a number of typical male behaviors are part of a pattern of abuse. Conservative Christian doctrines and traditional husband behaviors (e.g. the man being in charge of finances) are presented as abusive. The idea that a couple fight or argue and then make up is presented as part of an abusive cycle.If a woman reads up on 'abuse' and then hears her pastor say she can divorce and remarry because of 'abuse', how does she respond? The pastor is talking about broken ribs and black eyes. Maybe she's thinking of her husband controlling the checkbook, quoting scripture about wives' submission, and telling her she looks fat in that dress. (Extreme example here.) Throw in some of the stuff that is promoted as 'rape' when feminist fornicators take over the dialogue... like if a man talks her into it when she wouldn't have wanted to otherwise, or if she felt pressured. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but some of the DV literature has promoted the idea of 'once and abuser, always an abuser.'-- maybe not those words, but that was the general idea. I know abusing one's wife is a horrible thing, and there are a lot of good things about living in a culture where there is a strong stigma against hitting women. But is it the heart of God for abusers to repent and marriages to be restored, or for marriages and families to be broken up? Are men who have gotten drunk and hit their wives and children beyond redemption? It may make us angry to think about it, but does God want to save and restore even the ones who are guilty of what we would all agree is actual 'abuse'?Looking at some of the material and later at some of the models and tools used online, it is fairly easy to label a lot of men as abusive. There is also a radical feminist idea that all men are 'potential abusers'There are also a number of genuinely rotten behaviors that get labeled as 'verbal abuse'-- demeaning and degrading someone. But more innocuous speech can be labeled as abusive also. There are different levels of 'abuse.' Saying from a pulpit that a wife can divorce over 'abuse' may be giving your audience permission to divorce over a myriad of offenses of varying degrees of severity.Take a look at this 'Power and Control' Wheel. If you sit around and think of it, you could think of a list of behaviors that a husband does that you would not label as abusive, but ticks a spoke of every one of these wheels. The man may not be the nicest husband, but probably nothing that comes to mind when most conservative Protestants think of 'abusive'. There are courts sending men accused of domestic violence to feminist programs, where they learn that the source of domestic violence is their being uncomfortable with female power and all kinds of feminist ideology. I don't remember the exact figures, but some estimates I have heard of is that 30 or 40 percentish of marriages or couples with physical abuse are cases where the wife is physically abusive. Those are the one's reported. This may be underreported by men who don't want to speak ill of their wives or admit to being being up by a girl. She hits. He can't hit back. There is a stigma against him hitting her, but not vice versa. If he defends himself or bruises her restraining her, and she calls the police, there is a very high chance he gets carted off in handcuffs and charged. There are places where police are required to take someone away from a DV call where there has been violence. There have been cases where they arrested too many women for feminist groups tastes, they complained, and the police started arresting more men again. The man is arrested, has a black mark on his record, and is labeled as an abuser. Oh, yeah, and the wife might be able to get permission from her pastor to divorce and remarry based on this
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