Divorce

This afternoon, I watched a documentary--BBC's Storyville, episode one--that amounted to a reality show covering a legal proceeding in rural China between two poor and poorly educated Chinese. In watching them, I was reminded that the American South does not have any monopoly on rednecks, who are distributed all over the world, it seems, clustering around rural towns and villages. Only cultural strength defeats the redneck mentality. Human beings default to a level just above savage animals. I was also impressed with the Chinese legal system, at least in regard to domestic disputes. The judge seemed quite reasonable and moderate, not at all draconian or authoritarian. In fact the court proceedings were quite casual and informal, a bit more so than I would prefer. I think that court proceedings should be imbued with dignity and gravitas, and outbursts or threats of violence should not be permitted. When the husband threatened the wife in court, I thought to myself that in an American court, that husband would have been sentenced to time in jail for contempt of court, if not assault. The Chinese judge mildly rebuked him, which puzzled me. I think that women have lower status in China.

I was also reminded of a scene from my childhood, when my mother wanted to divorce my father. Dad cleverly manipulated me in order to dissuade her from leaving him. I remember when she was at the front door, suitcases in hand, and I flung my arms around her and begged her not to go. I succeeded, but I was wrong. I see that now. I was motivated by selfishness and an inability to understand the issues between them other than at the most superficial level. So she remained in a dismal marriage for love of us. Only later did I come to understand his ways. He is not evil, but his thinking is confused, his perceptions distorted. He is a prisoner to his destiny. Now I am of the opinion that she should have divorced him a long, long time ago and been done with it. I feel resentment for having been manipulated by him at a tender age when I did not know any better. He was motivated by base cowardice, a fear of being left alone with no one, which became in later years his actual destiny, because he drove people away with his resentments and disputes. I think that we all would have been better off if she had left him when she wanted to leave him, and I think that she should have moved far, far away. But perhaps we are all prisoners of our flaws and limitations to some degree. Who has the strength to always take the best path? Such a human being has never existed.