BUt, I offer as much of an argument as you did, all you did was make a statement (your opinion).
How do you measure that Caribbean men see women as possession? Isn't that how it is in the States, divorce for whatever reason? A divorce is much more acceptable than a man just leaving? What is the fastest growing family in America beside Same sex parents?
Cavalier attitude to domestic violence how so? My belief is that people don't have confidence in the police responding to calls of domestic abuse and therefore won't make the call or get involved. As such, domestic violence may manifest and people may interpret it as a cavlier attitude to domestic violence.
what I did was state a sociological observation that is borne out by studies done right there in Trinidad. It was never my assertion that Caribbean men EXCLUSIVELY have that mindset (Kicker this addresses your response as well). We are talking about an incident which occurred in the Caribbean and thus that's why I spoke of Caribbean men. Not sure what your divorce in the US angle has to do with what I said, but anyways...
That said, we do have a particular problem in the Caribbean given the high incident of domestic abuse and physical assaults occurring within relationships (different from actual "domestic" abuse). Just a backdrop:
Early in indentureship because of the realities of the society from which workers were recruited in India, there were significantly more men than women in the colonies. One article I read had it as high as 25 men to every woman. As a result East Indian women in Trinidad (the article dealt with Trinidad) were from early seen as a valuable commodity, not only to the man who was lucky enough to have one, but also to the community itself. This is why the notion of indian women mixing with the local African population was such a powder keg issue, and one of the reasons why Indian men were so possessive of their women.
Whether you think it's stereotypical or text bookish, it's also a harsh reality. By no means do I think this applies to each and every East Indian man in Trinidad, but I'm pretty sure it perfectly describes the mindset of many. Ever wonder why there isn't a similar incidence of murder-suicides among non-Indian ethnic groups in Trinidad? My assessment was one which also took the ethnicity of the killer and victim into consideration... seeing how much play it got in the thread.
You also completely missed my point about the 'cavalier' attitude our society has towards domestic violence. You seem to interpret that as meaning the average citizen holds such an attitude.... but it goes deeper than that, which is why I spoke about the laws currently on the books as well. It's not just Joe and Jane citizen... but the police as well. It's ironic that you point out that the police don't take domestic abuse seriously but yet fail to see that I was making the same point as well. Police don't take it seriously and our lawmakers don't take it seriously.
On all levels in Trinidad, even among the victims themselves ("if he ent beat mih den dat mean he ent love mih"), we have conditioned ourselves to become accepting of domestic violence...
"tuh see man beating woman... is not uncommon" ... "ah little boot, little foot, little ruff, little cuff, little rough up she nuff nuff"... as Nello sang in "We Like It". So yeah, as I said... regardless police, politician or civilian, we have too much of a cavalier attitude towards domestic violence.
