Maro’s decision: “Silence for the sake of Family Preservation”

Maro lives in Gegharkunik Marz, has been married for 12 years, has two sons. Her family is one of the many families in Armenia that survive abroad. Maro’s husband works for 8-9 months in Russia and is only home for 3-4 months a year. But those months, as recently as it turned out, are not so happy for Maro. So many years has been beaten by him, and probably nobody would knew about it, if she had not had any health problems. Maro refuses to talk about this, she says everything is normal, one should not have to take out the garbage and that her relatives exaggerate, if she knew that everything would be so, she would never say anything to his father and sister.

“We were not even doubt that there were such problems in my sister’s family,” says Maro’s sister. “She has never complained, we have not even seen anything hinted or worried. We do not see our sister’s husband almost all the time, from New Year to New Year. Of course, we noticed that there was a love for alcohol, but we thought, “Is it a man who does not drink?” And my sister always spoke well of her husband, saying that he is a devoted to family, loves her and her child, and every month sends money.

All of us are shocked by our sister’s behavior, she protects her husband, justifies finding that everything is normal, so it should be, that we’re getting very involved and we’re destroying his family …

We talked about the incident with psychologist Marianna Abovyan, who said that Maro’s position is quite popular among our people and in reality, she just reproduces the behavior and decision that is acceptable for a large part of society …

– If we refer to our films, literature, we can often come up with an opinion that justifies such a situation …

By the way, according to the sociological survey conducted by the United Nations Population Fund in 2016, the Armenian society is unfortunately justifying violence against women.