Women castrating men because of violent behavior or affairs is not unheard of, but an enraged wife took the revenge to a new level by doing it twice to her unlucky husband, sending shivers among many men in China.
 
The offended woman went way beyond what can be considered appropriate when she severed her husband’s penis, not once, but twice earlier this month. The sheer horror and shock of this “tragedy,” as well as a mild tragicomic aspect to it, made it hot news on the Internet that was widely shared in the country and worldwide by foreign media outlets. But it is more than just a bizarre story and laughing matter, especially as it’s the latest in a disturbing trend of violent attacks among couples and in families.
 
First, let’s look at how the castration incident unfolded.

According to local news reports, the wife received sexually enticing messages on her phone from her husband, except that they were not intended for her. She found that the messages were in fact for his mistress, which led her to lose her mind and attack him with a knife and cut off his penis. The man, surnamed Fan, was then sent to the hospital and had his penis reattached. But the story did not end at this point. The woman, her rage unfulfilled, then snuck into the hospital, attacked her husband in his room and severed his penis again. She then threw it out the window. The two then ended up fighting outside the hospital, the husband naked and blood streaming down his legs. Hospital staff were not able to find the “organ” and said it may have been carried off by a stray dog or cat. Afterwards, Fan’s mistress visited him in the hospital and said she would marry him even though he now lacked a penis.
 
The incident begs a few questions.

First, how was the woman able to sneak into the hospital after having cut off her husband’s penis earlier? Surely, she should have been detained by authorities after committing the violent act the very first time. And where were the hospital’s security and staff during all this “action”? The fact that the couple ended up fighting outside after the incident points to a lack of adequate hospital security.
 
More importantly, the main issue was cheating by her husband. And while she took her anger out on the right person – the husband, as opposed to many other angry wives who have carried out attacks on their husband’s mistresses, her behavior was chilling and criminal. Going beyond the severe and tragicomic nature of the act, this is obviously an extreme reaction and the woman deserves to receive a serious punishment in accordance with law.
 
The incident will also have an adverse effect on the couple’s offspring and their future.

The couple are reported to have five children which is an impressive number, even by Western standards. It also means five lives have been changed as their parents will almost certainly not stay together to look after the children.
 
Incidents of castration have also happened overseas and there was a particularly notorious case in the United States in 1993. Lorena Bobbitt severed her husband’s penis with a knife after he had allegedly sexually abused her that day. The incident was caused by spousal abuse and infidelity of the man.
 
However, in the case of Fan and his wife, having an affair seems to be the only problem.
 
Of course, it is not unthinkable for a woman to threaten to cut off her partner’s penis, but usually one would think she is joking.
 
This is also not the first instance of violent castration in a family in China recently.

Earlier in November last year, a 3-year-old boy, also in Henan, was castrated by his aunt. The reason was that he burst in on her while she was in the toilet to borrow her phone because he wanted to play a game.
 
The castrations are part of a disturbing trend of people resorting to violence due to frustration or rage over a personal issue. Sometimes, this has had fatal consequences, such as the killing of three schoolchildren last September in a Hubei school by a man whose child was refused admission to the school.
 
In this case, at least the woman attacked her husband and not the mistress. In previous cases of infidelity in China, jealous wives have resorted to attacking their husbands’ mistresses, rather than the husbands themselves. Last year, alleged mistresses were stripped and beaten in public in various places including Henan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Shandong. Either way, beating up mistresses or castration are not sensible ways to solve domestic issues.
 
Violence is obviously not an answer for most problems in life. It’s a lesson that many of us have been taught when we were young. Unfortunately it is something that seems to have been forgotten by some people in the country. While this bizarre incident of double-castration by an angry wife may seem like a quirky act of rage, it’s also a sad reflection of how prevalent violence has become in the society.

The author is a Beijing-based freelance writer

(Opinions expressed in the article do not represent those of the Sino-US.com)