Divorce in Vietnam is no longer a taboo
HO CHI MINH CITY - If only she could have hung
on to her marriage just a little bit longer.
Yes, her ex-husband drank too much, his gambling debts drained
her savings, he brazenly cheated on her, including with the woman
who lived across the hall, and he even threatened to kill her.
But when Ngoc Dung Pham filed for divorce in Vietnam in 1985,
putting up with a miserable marriage may actually have been
better than what she had to endure by leaving him.
For centuries, women seeking divorce in Vietnam subjected
themselves to a lifetime of public scorn, disgraced their whole
household, and doomed their children's hopes for marriage into
good families.
Just a year after Pham suffered through that humiliation, the rigid
taboo against divorce began to crumble. Since then, divorce in
Vietnam has become nearly as common as it is in the United
States.
The divorce rate is highest in Ho Chi Minh City -- old Saigon --
where an estimated two out of every five couples split. In perhaps
the biggest sign of change, about half the divorces these days are
initiated by women.
"In my time, women were not supposed to change husbands like
they change a blouse," said Pham, 43. "Now young people rush
into love, and if it doesn't work, they rush to leave."
Vietnam for more than 2,000 years followed the teachings of
Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher who was dismissive of
women and frequently said, "Nothing is so hard to handle as a
woman." As a result, women in Vietnam were expected to remain
dutiful and faithful to their husbands, while their husbands could
take several wives and do as they wished with each of them.
When the communists took over the North in 1954 and the South
in 1975, they tried to make men and women equal partners in
marriage, but it didn't work. The ancient legacy of men behaving
badly stuck. So did the taint on women seeking divorce.
So how did thousands of years of intractable social order unravel
in just over a decade?
The simple answer is economics. But the real explanation is more
complicated.
Desperate to lift its limp economy, the communist government
decided in 1986 to ease its state-controlled grip over commerce
and allow some private enterprise. The idea was to get an infusion
of Western money. But the Vietnamese government also got a
few things it didn't expect.
A deluge of Western books, movies, and music trickled into the
culture, spreading new attitudes about love, individuality, free will
-- and instant gratification.
Sociologists said these shocking, indulgent ideas were greedily
absorbed by much of the public. Many Vietnamese, suffering for
decades from wartime depravations, now had comfort for the first
time in their lives. Comfort gave them the chance to think about
something other than day-to-day subsistence. That led them to
think about their own needs and desires.
At the same time, whole generations of young, impressionable
Vietnamese were weaned on these new views of life. They had no
intention of reverting to the cultural dark ages.
In the once-repressive society that frowned on public displays of
affection, the new social order meant more hand-holding and
necking in public, and more premarital sex and abortions in
private. It also meant that divorce was no longer as much of a
stigma.
"People look at divorce now with a more forgiving eye," said Le
thi Quy, a Hanoi sociologist and one of the few academics in
Vietnam who study gender issues. "They are beginning to
understand that personal happiness is one important element of a
marriage."
If statistics are any indication, it seems that many people were
miserable in their marriages. For the five years between 1977 and
1982, when divorce was still discouraged, Vietnam courts
recorded a total of about 28,000 divorces. In 1986 alone, the
first year of the dramatic economic reform, the court registered
29,000 divorce cases.
By 1996, the most recent year that statistics were available, there
were 44,000 divorces granted.
While the population was also rising during this time, sociologists
say the rate of divorce far outpaced the rate of population growth.
The liberalized cultural climate stunned women like Pham, women
raised to believe that "happiness" in a marriage was measured
only by stability, saving face, and serving their husbands.
"You are taught to put up with everything," said Pham, in a gentle,
solemn voice. "I knew women whose faces were purple from
beatings by their husbands, and they still didn't dare leave them."
Pham was the daughter of a rice farmer from Dalat, a community
in Vietnam's central highlands, north of Saigon. She met her
ex-husband when she was 17, a senior in high school. He was 24,
and had just come back from the army. He seemed worldly,
handsome and tall.
She was pretty then, too. A young woman with a shy smile. There
are only scant traces of that now in her swollen, melancholy face.
"He was sweet," she said. "He told me stories about all his
adventures. It was the time in my life to get married, so we got
married."
The first few years of their lives together were tranquil. They had
a baby daughter, they moved to Saigon. But by the fifth year of
marriage, things began to change. Her husband frequently came
home drunk from long nights gambling. He had affairs with other
women, often flaunting them in front of his wife's face and cursing
at her. Pham worked long days as a maid to support them. He
did nothing.
When she told him she was unhappy, he lunged at her with a
razor, slashed her underpants and tried to force himself on her. As
she fled, he told her he was going to kill her.
"My heart was bleeding," she said. "I wanted to die. But I didn't,
because I didn't know who would take care of my children."
Pham tolerated all this for five years. It was what was expected of
her. But enduring it every single day became too much. Finally,
she filed for divorce. She knew everyone would blame her. It
didn't matter that they knew of her husband's brutal, cruel
behavior. It didn't matter that she feared for her family's safety.
"There is so much shame," said Pham, sitting beside her
80-year-old mother, who wraps her in a protective embrace.
Pham insists that she is not bitter.
She takes comfort knowing that the future will be easier for her
daughter. Pham takes comfort knowing that her daughter will be
able to make a choice, if necessary, that will not brand her a
perpetual outcast. And most important, she takes comfort in
knowing that her daughter will have a chance at something that
has eluded Pham all her life: happiness.
That thought is the first thing to bring a smile to her face all day.
By Elsa C. Arnett - Knight-Ridder Tribune News - February 10, 2001.
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