So this whole
Brown thing has really got me to thinking. Many emotions have been running through me, from sympathy for the Brown girls to outrage at their father's actions to disgust with the world in general. But I keep wondering about one thing in particular. The question on my mind is this:
Do you leave your husband if he turns out to be a pedophile?
My knee jerk reaction is absolutely. Do you even have to ask? There are very few crimes worse than sexual abuse of a child, and it would be impossible to live with someone who has committed it. Right? That would be like condoning the behavior, somehow. It just seems obvious. If he diddles little kids, you dump his butt. Period. This is an opinion I have had since I have been old enough to know what these things mean. I never even thought about it at all.
So now I'm looking at the Browns. He's a pedophile. Convicted as of today. Sex Offender Registry, here he comes. So far, though, Mrs. Brown hasn't left her husband. She's had to have known about this abuse for quite a while now, if not for years. But she's still living with him, still going out to dinner with him, still doing "married" things. Come to think of it, I can recall many stories of men discovered to be child sexual abusers, and I don't recall hearing about how all their wives left them immediately. Why not? How on earth do you stay? The attitudes of my past instinctively make me more than a little critical of these women. Of Mrs. Brown. And now that the situation has come up, I find myself examining my feelings about this issue, my feelings towards these women. I'm a lot older than I used to be, and I might be a bit wiser. I'm definitely a lot more world weary. I see so much more gray in the world than I ever used to. And I wonder, do you leave your husband if it turns out he is a pedophile? After careful consideration, my answer is: "Not necessarily."
My reasoning, jumbled and incomplete though it is, is thus:
In our culture (
LDS culture), we claim to place a high value on marriage, and we should, in my opinion. Marriage is such an important building block of society, and also such a personally risky endeavor that we must do all we can as a society to ensure success. Study after study show that children are healthier, happier, wealthier, better adjusted, and more likely to succeed when they are raised in a stable, two-parent home. So the marriage agreement is viewed as a covenant, as one of the highest moral and social obligations we have. We agree to love, honor, etc., until DEATH DO US PART (even longer in the
LDS temple ceremony.) There are very few acceptable reasons for dissolving a marriage.
Do you leave your spouse if he/she gets cancer? Or Lupus? We as a society are pretty critical of those who would do so. How about if your spouse suffers a traumatic brain injury (
TBI) that renders them disabled, perhaps helpless? Do we get to leave them in that scenario? What if a
TBI leaves them with no lasting physical impairment, but significantly alters their personality or mental acumen? I personally know of a case where a husband received a brain injury in a car accident soon after marriage which resulted in a marked drop in IQ. His wife felt she was committed and stayed with him, raising a family of 3 children. They are still together, despite the fact that he is a different person than she married. That's commitment for you. So....(you can see the train of though rumbling along here, right?)...is pedophilia a disease, a condition? Can a person control whether they "have" it? If they cannot, how do you leave them? I guess your personal opinion of the origins of pedophilia would have great significance here.
The next consideration would be how much damage a pedophile could do if he lived in your home. If you have a child whom the pedophile has already abused, I don't think there could be any defense for keeping the abuser in the home. You would effectively be choosing the abuser over the child. It would be tantamount telling that child every day that they have no value, they are worthless. Not acceptable, in my book. I've seen the damage that comes from a mother choosing her adult relationship over her child's well-being and safety. Serious emotional trauma. But what if the children in the home haven't been abused? If you have little ones who have not entered into the age of attraction for the abuser, you would be taking a serious risk by staying married. That risk could feasibly be mitigated. If you were a stay-at-home mom, and your husband worked outside the home, and you had a strong network of friends and family to depend on, you could reasonably schedule thing so that the abuser is NEVER alone with the kids. It could be done. But it would be difficult. It would be like being a single parent, without any time off, never a break from vigilance. I don't think I could do it. There also might be legal repercussions to allowing your children to be under the same roof as a known pedophile, even if you made sure they were always adequately chaperoned. What if, however, your children were grown and gone, and there was no chance of abuse in the home? Might it not be better for everyone if you were to stay married? You could serve as a sort of guard for any children your spouse might come in contact with. You could be helpful in the therapy and treatment of the condition, or at least in preventing future incidences. (Studies indicate there is no cure. Once a pedophile, always a pedophile.) You could stand by your marriage covenants and provide a help to society at the same time.
Attitude should figure in here, as well. Is he ashamed, sorrowful, and willing to do whatever it takes to avoid any future abuse? Or is he likely to try everything he can to get through any safeguards you set up? How dependable has he been in the past about personal self-control? Do you believe he would try, and try very hard, to keep any more children from getting hurt?
After considering all these things, I can think of situations in which one would be morally justified in standing by the abuser, in staying married. There are even situations when I would consider one might be morally obligated to remain married (Although as I type this, I'm not so sure. Should you ever be obligated to stay married to a someone who abused the marriage trust so terribly?) So I will try to reign in my indignation at the women who stay with pedophiles and abusers. I have no right to judge their actions when I don't have all the information. I should really just thank God that I don't have to stand in their shoes.
Post Script: I should add one item that I neglected to address when I wrote this post, but which my cousin brought up in comments. If you, (whether as a spouse or not), know that someone is currently abusing anyone, and you don't do anything about it, you become every bit as guilty as the abuser. I firmly believe that. as does the legal system in this country.
