As little girls, we dream of fairy tales. We fantasize about a handsome man swooping in and saving us-making us whole and completing our lives. As Southern Christian women, we are taught to save ourselves for our future husband; we are pleaded with to guard our purity as it is our most precious gift. If we no longer have that part of ourselves, we are ruined, unclean with nothing to give. In one instant, we have somehow betrayed someone we have yet to meet. In the same pious breath, church elders emphasize a woman's role as a servant to the man in their life. .Hushed undertones in every verse dictate that we let the man lead us as the shepherd leads the sheep. We are to be quiet, graceful, meek, conservative, dependent, hardworking, domestic, beautiful, modest...
So what is a young girl to think when the boy she knows she will marry-the ring on her finger serves as a brand-demands her to give up that most precious gift? What does she do when he has pressed and pressed and cursed her and cried for forgiveness and accused her of not truly loving him? What does she do when this has gone on for over a year? Does she leave? The look of pride on her grandmother's face when she sees the ring, the expectation to tether yourself to a man, the isolation from friends and family that has slowly encased her, cements her where she kneels at his feet. A floor mat meets the feet that step on it with more resistance than this shell of a girl now shows to her abuser.
Abuser.
Only a woman can identify and recognize that quality in a person. To a teenage girl, "boyfriend" is synonymous. This knight in shining armor she so desperately tries to see in characters from her favorite love tales-Edward Cullen, "he loves you and just needs to know you are safe"-has become a puppeteer. Her actions, her body, her thoughts...no longer her own but dictated by the spectre who pulls the strings. He plays with other puppets-many other puppets-but she is leading role, his favorite. He casts her in roles she cannot fill and finds amusement in her humiliation. Even when she finally finds the courage the snip the strings that tether them, he isn't finished playing with his favorite doll.
"How could she abandon me? How could she break my heart?" he shouts to he theater, as if the strings she cut were more his than her own soul she sliced through. The naiive puppet crawls out from under the stage, wondering if he could really feel remorse. He decides he does not need the strings and snatches up her body to play with his doll one last time.
Our poor puppet falls to the ground.
Now broken, the puppeteer has no use for her and walks away from our limping marionette. Unaware of the gravity of that last show, she patches herself up as best she can and sets out to find her control bar. She must find this control and reattach her strings so she can learn to move on her own.