What Is The Abuse Of Women In A Thousand Splendid Suns

Spousal abuse is an occurring problem; women are being forced by their families and men into abusive relationships that they have no way of escaping and are being devalued by men. Such is the case in A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini with Rasheed’s abusive and mortifying behaviors towards his wives Mariam and Laila. In the novel, both Mariam and Laila are victims of many types of spousal abuse such as physical, emotional, and sexual. By looking at A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khalid Hosseini, one can see the issue of spousal abuse occurring throughout the story, which is important because it highlights the ongoing issue of women being degraded and being treated unfairly by men.

The first form of abuse that occurs is sexual abuse, the

“His powerful hands clasped her jaw. He shoved two fingers into her mouth and pried it open, then forced the cold, hard pebbles into it. Mariam struggled against him, mumbling, but he kept pushing the pebbles in, his upper lip curled in a sneer. Now chew, he said.” (104) Rasheed forcing his wife to eat rocks in her mouth shows the harsh punishments men give their wives and the level of severity men will go to teach their wives a lesson. He was willing to torture his wife by eating rocks just to teach her a lesson. All she did was cook rice wrong, imagine what he would do to her if she did something worse. Another example of Rasheed’s abuse is when “He was still on top of Laila, his eyes wide and crazy, his hand wrapped around her neck. Laila’s face was turning blue now, and her eyes had rolled back. Mariam saw that she was no longer struggling. He’s going to kill her, she thought. He really means to. And Mariam could not, would not, allow that to happen. He’d taken so much from her in twenty-seven years of marriage. She would not watch him take Laila too.” (348) The word choice “his eyes wide and crazy” shows how violent some men are to their wives and how the women can’t do anything about the abuse. He was willing to strangle his wife to death because he did not agree with the way she was acting. Mariam couldn’t watch Rasheed take anything else from

Rasheed finds Laila under the rubble and asks her to be his wife because she has no home to go to, he tells Mariam “She can leave, I won’t stand in her way. But I suspect she won’t get far. No food, no water, not a rupiah in her pockets, bullets and rockets flying everywhere. How many days do you suppose she’ll last before she’s abducted, raped, or tossed into some roadside ditch with her throat slit? Or all three? “ (215). Rasheed telling Mariam what would happen if she didn’t move in with them goes to show the life that women have and how little freedom they have in their life. If Laila doesn’t stay with Rasheed and Mariam then she will most likely be raped by men on the streets and live a horrible life but Laila doesn’t realize the cruelty she is about to endure after she marries Rasheed. There is no way out of the marriage and she will be beaten or even killed if she tries to leave. When Laila and Mariam try to run away from Rasheed when he is not home they are stopped by soldiers at the boarding station “You two, with the child, step aside” (263) they are taken back to Rasheed’s house. The officer says “What a man does in his home is his business.” (266) The word choice indicates that men don’t care what other men do to their wives in their own homes. Rasheeds abusive temper is indicated when “Laila didn’t see the punch coming. One moment she was talking and the next she was on all fours,