A happy home is the paradise on the earth that is why it is called home sweet home but in Pakistan it does not seem likewise because quite a few are sour and many more are even bitter. Countless of them are veritable torture cells whose physical abuse of the weaker member of the family ranges from beating, burning, and injuring to downright murder.

The other form of torture is emotional and psychological that makes the victim crazy who may lose mental balance under sustained and perpetual victimization. Such homes become snake pits of mental cruelty. The question arises that what makes a home pleasant or unpleasant? Obviously, it is the loving compassionate behavior of the inmate that makes the house worth living whereas an insulting and abusive environment makes the living conditions unbearable which may lead to a variety of unpleasant consequences for the whole family.

It is in fact the quality of mutual relationships and attitudes of the family members towards each other that determine extend of happiness or bitterness of the home life. Domestic problems are often created by disturbed minds while composed mental conditions tend to promote the state of happiness. Human minds have the capability of working both ways which can be positive at one time and negative for the other. If a family members especially the one who matters, turns hostile for any reasonable he converts his heavenly house in to a devil’s den. John Milton in his epic (Paradise lost) says that “the mind is its own place in itself can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven”. The National Assembly has taken the vital decision of passing a bill known as “The prevention of Domestic violence Bill 2009”. It provides protection to women, children and other family members vulnerable to crimes at home and prescribes punishment for the offences committed.

According to Aurat foundation of an NGO, the reported cases of violence against women in one year number around 8000. Everyday newspapers, print stories of shocking abuses against women and children are common. The main victim of the domestic violence in the society is women because of the day when she leaves parents’ house and joins her in-laws her life time ordeal begins. They watch her every suspiciously and critically. The husband thinks that his manhood would remain unrecognized unless he beats her off and on. Among friends he boosts with pride that keeping his wife in place where he thrashes her quite often. Her in laws not only encourages such acts of violence but themselves inflict as much emotional distress upon the poor soul as possible. The husband instead of protecting his wife looks the other way that he may be branded a hen-pecked husband. The wife, for her part, takes all such insults and physical beating as part of her fate. She has been taught by prevailing social norms that so long as is alive she is not leave her husband’s house, come on what way. On death, of course, she is dispatched to the nearest graveyard to lie in peace till the Day of Judgment.

However the physical and mental violence being hurled upon the women since ages which has made bitterly revengeful. She shows her violent reaction often out of proportion. Instances of grim tragedies have taken place where a wronged mother carries her children whose quality walks out of the house unnoticed and jumps into the nearby canal along with her children. Regarding this her ordeal ends and the ordeal of the in-laws begins. Newspaper splash harrowing tale of domestic violence in which a wife drugs her cruel husband and quality slits his throat aided by her accomplices with whom she is probably developed illicit relations. The father and the mother of her husband grow old, husband by now has lost much of his fury and the aggrieved woman takes charge of the household. Beside these, enraged husband at time beats her up to ease himself or subjects her to neglect. He watches her every move with suspicion lets her developing extra-marital relations. He does not even like her to visit her parents which are high mental agony for her.

The brief study of the problems leads to three main causes which account domestic violence Illiteracy and lack of education, uneasy domestic relationships, and higher incident of poverty. All these factors put together producing an unsettled home, a disturbed society which eventually creates an unhappy and disgruntled nation. These causes should be eradicated and a serious notice must be taken at the highest official level.