Countless Marriages: The Abuse Of Alcohol

Countless marriages are destroyed because one partner takes up drinking. This is problematic because excessive alcohol abuse causes the consumer to become violent, which strains the relationship they have with their spouse. Eventually, this relationship begins to deteriorate all together. Almost every marriage in which one person becomes addicted to alcohol becomes unsalvageable, which forces the spouse to leave the addicted and abusive partner. Such was the case of Cleòfilas Enriqueta DeLeòn Hernandez. Cleòfilas was a young Hispanic woman who fell in love with and married a man named Juan Pedro Martìnez Sànchez. In the beginning their marriage was a happy one; until one day Juan fell to drinking. He became increasingly violent until he finally
His anger became so bad that it eventually caused him to strike his wife. Many women find themselves in this same position: their husband takes up drinking, becomes angrier and more violent and eventually begins to beat them constantly. There are countless stories of women like Cleòfilas being beaten by their alcohol-addicted husbands. This abuse is wrong; no man should ever beat his wife, even if he is drunk. According to ‘Woman Hollering Creek’ by Sandra Cisneros, Cleòfilas was shocked the first time that her husband struck her. They hadn’t been married for very long when it happened. “The first time she had been so surprised she didn’t cry out or try to defend herself. She had always said she would strike back if a man, any man, were to strike her.” Poor Cleòfilas didn’t know how to react; she just stood there in shock as he beat her. …“he slapped her once, and then again, and again, until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood, she didn’t fight back, she didn’t break into tears, she didn’t run away as she imagined she might when she saw such things in the telenovelas”. She didn’t understand why he would hit her. After all, in her father’s house such a thing would never have been permitted. “In her own home her parents had never raised a hand to each other or to their children”. Cleòfilas knew what her husband had done to her was wrong, but all she could do was sit in shock