Sons and mothers

Mother is the pivot of a child's life. Sometimes the loving heart and arms of a mother are cruelly wrenched, and the child becomes a monster. You! peers into the dark, ugly world of mother abusers and matricide offenders...

Mother is usually the centre of a child's world. She is the first voice, the first face that a child sees. The bond between a mother and her child is the most divine bond of all. A child's life is completed with a smile, touch or sound of its mother's voice. Mothers are generally accused of being partial to their sons, like fathers are for daughters. Mothers have been given a loving heart, which is full of affection and prayers for their children, while the kids can love their mothers enough. But sometimes a child's feelings for the mother can take a sinister turn and they may verbally and physically abuse their mother or commit matricide - murdering one's mother.

Crimes against women, especially mothers, are not new. In fact, killing one's mother or committing matricide has been around for thousands of years. A quick look into history reveals that the Greek Queen of Heraclea Amastris wife of Craterus was drowned by her own two sons in 284 BC. Other historical matricides include the murder of Egyptian queen Cleopatra III in 101 BC at the orders of her son Ptolemy X, for conspiring against him and Roman Emperor Nero's mother's murder in AD 59, or rather she was murdered at his order for 'conspiring' against him.

Some experts say that an abusive son suffers from many issues - psychologically as well as socially. There may be many reasons for this:

The son's behaviour towards his mother may depend on the way other males, especially how his father treats women, and his mother, in general.

Mother of nine children, Bashiraan Bibi, resident of Hafizabad, Punjab, was sold by two of her sons for only thirty thousand rupees. According to media reports Bashiraan Bibi's older sons Ansar and Ghazanfar used to abuse her. She told the police that the man they sold her to, Abbas, paid Rs. 30,000 for her. He kept her tied up, tortured her and raped her several times. Fortunately, Bashiraan Bibi managed to escape her captor and safely reached the house of her relatives, and afterwards she married Hafiz Bashir in a civil court.

Bashiraan's son threatened to kill her if she remarried. They preferred to sell her rather than let her remarry. Ironically she may have been lucky that her son 'punished' her by selling her and not murdering her in cold blood.

While Islam and Pakistan's law allow a widow or divorced woman to remarry, she may not be able to do so because her children or sons do not approve of her getting remarried. It never occurs to them that their mother may need a companion after they all have moved on in life. They punish their mothers, as in the case of Bashiraan Bibi, by giving her away to a stranger and allowing him to do whatever he wants, while making some cash in the process. It is likely that in many cases such sons will be let off, like they are forgiven for many other crimes by the society, just because they are men. Punishing one's mother or even killing her can be explained by many in our society of being a matter of honour, especially if the mother is, widowed, divorced, or wants to get married again.

Many women in Pakistan suffer similar atrocities from their sons, who follow the lead of other men, especially their fathers, and mistreat all women in their lives including their mothers.

In another incident, which also took place in Punjab in January 2011, a son murdered his mother by slitting her throat to get possession of her house.

Crimes against mothers seem to occur across the board, regardless of religion, caste or creed. However, hurting or killing the most precious person is neither a new nor rare occurrence. According to the Indian media, on January 24, 2011 in a case of matricide a resident of Jharkhand, India, axed his mother to death; just because he suspected that his mother's 'black magic' was making his wife ill.

These are some of the recorded cases, which have made it to the media. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of cases that are not allowed to be aired, even to the nearest and dearest of people. The main reason for this is that mothers try to protect their children, even if they are mistreated by them.

Khalida is a widow who lives near Sukker with her huge family. She recently found out that one of her sons had committed adultery and mistreated his wife and his children. Being a strong woman, Khalida stood up against her son as she thought that he had committed a crime which for her was the most heinous one religiously, morally and socially. However, she was punished for exposing and admonishing him for his crime. Instead of being ashamed for what he did, Khalida's son 'punished' his widowed mother by using expletives that one would never use for a woman, let alone a mother. He accused her of being an adulterer herself and attacked her, threatening to beat her to a pulp. Luckily, Khalida's other children intervened and saved her from her son's insane onslaught. Physically shaken, Khalida expected support from her family. Sadly and to her surprise, she was told that she had provoked her son to fly into a rage and that she should try not to do so in the future.

Another is the case of Saima, a 65-years-old woman, works as a maid at several houses to contribute to running her huge family comprising her sons, their wives and children. She shared the position of head of the family until her husband's death five years ago. Since her husband's death, she has been demoted and her elder son has taken his father's position as the head of the family. Saima had been a little hurt by this, but she kept her silence to keep peace in the family. However, recently she felt her son turning into a tyrant. He would scold her as if she was one of his younger siblings or children. At first, she ignored this but then he started getting harsh and started slapping her around. She retaliated, only to receive a blow on the face and a black eye. Saima knew that she would not get any support from any of her relatives or children. So, she decided to move out of the house and took a job where she lived with her employers, tending an elderly woman. Her son went ballistic and made a huge fuss about this. However, luckily she was saved by her employer's sons when they intervened and threatened to call the police.

For women like these what is the use of human rights, women's rights or social mores and laws? There is no point in more legislation to make laws to protect abused women and mothers, when these laws are neither enforced nor able to protect these women from becoming targets of their male's barbarism.