* This is not an attempt at male bashing, but simply putting the facts out there. Many a man has chosen to walk with God and led exemplarary lives, caring for and nurturing their wife, children, family and friends, but that is not the way of the world since the beginning. That said, throughout history, there has been many a woman who's cruelty met or exceeded that of any man and so these issues are more about Good and Evil in a soul.

In the last days of a marriage gone bad (I suppose the personality seemed all too familiar to the abuse I was subject to as a child and I blinded myself to the bad), I sat helplessly in a chair at gunpoint and watched as my ex emptied our house, taking even my things, just to make it hurt all the more. Treasures of family and long time friendships, walking out the door and being stomped on. Holding the gun, was a police officer, who felt it necessary to tell me that his first job is to protect the American male, then children, and wives. He then looked at me and said that In his opinion, I weighed in somewhere below the family pet. This was not the dark ages, so how could this be happening?
Since the beginning of time, it has been the male that was valued as a child as well as an adult. Children were treated as chattle that could be bought and sold. The male child often enslaved as a worker and the female child sold for for goods to prosper the family. Children born less than perfect were often taken outside the city, set out for the wolves to eat. Women were usually a servant and after the lust had passed, aquiesed themselves to a life of being last choice when their husband could not find a younger tramp of a woman to take his seed. The wife, on the word of her husband could be stoned to death on accusations of looking at another man or not adequately providing sexually for her husband. The wife and children could be beaten without interfearence from family or friend and the male, still highly regarded. It is no wonder that there still exists, this animal like thinking and behavior in some circles of society. We'd like to believe we are so far removed from this, but in truth it can be as near as a family member or neighbor. Never in history has this behavior been more of a choice to either do good or evil, yet it still exists and flourishes. Whether male or female, when a person commits attrocities like sexual, physical and emotional abuse, all of their gender suffers. In this day and age, we like to attrbute every thing to a disorder and stop short of mouthing the words, Good and evil, lest we have to believe in a Omnipotent God. History attests that abusers do not change, they only adapt. It is an awfully hard decision, to walk away from abusers who are parents or siblings, and never look back, but certaimly not convicting under the fourth commandment that cites, "Honour thy mother and father", nor does it make us any less forgiving as Christ asked us to be.