98% of Brazilian Women Change Their Routine Out of Fear: Is Your Home a Refuge or Another Risk?

The fact

Last week, two Brazilian research institutes, Patrícia Galvão and Locomotiva, presented a national survey called Women’s Safety: Brazilian Society’s Perception of Violence at the annual meeting of the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety. According to Agência Brasil, Brazil’s public news agency, 78% of women say they have experienced at least one form of violence, and 98% use some everyday strategy to lower their risk: avoiding certain places (90%), telling someone where they are going (83%), not going out at night (83%). 45% have passed up a job or study opportunity out of fear. O Globo added that six in ten Brazilian women fear domestic violence. The survey heard 1,500 people aged 16 and older from every region, with a margin of error of 2.8 points.

From here on, this is my opinion — as a pastor, a husband, and a man.

The number that bothered me

The street numbers make me sad, but they don’t surprise me. Every father of a daughter knows what this survey is describing. What kept me up was the other line: six in ten women are afraid of domestic violence.

Domestic. As in: at home. The place she comes back to after a whole day of planning her route, hiding her phone, and sharing her location with a friend.

Think about it. A woman spends the day on high alert out there. She opens her front door. And for a huge number of women, the alarm doesn’t switch off. Sometimes it gets louder.

I’m not saying six in ten husbands are abusers. The survey doesn’t say that, and I won’t bend the data. I’m saying the fear is real, and we men have to stop treating this as a problem for “some other kind of guy.” And don’t assume this is only a Brazilian issue. Men everywhere should ask the same question.

Violence doesn’t start with a punch

When domestic violence comes up, every churchgoing man relaxes: “I’ve never laid a hand on my wife.” Good. But violence rarely starts with a slap. It starts with a tone. A slammed door. Silence used as punishment. Control over the money, the phone, the friendships. Humiliation in front of the kids, “just joking.”

The Bible doesn’t treat this as a personality quirk. Paul was blunt:

“Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” (Colossians 3:19, NIV)

And Peter put it on a level that should make every Christian man tremble:

“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” (1 Peter 3:7, NIV)

Read the end again. The way you treat your wife at home affects your prayer life. Some men cry during worship and intimidate at home, and assume God doesn’t connect the two. He does.

Head of the home is not owner of the house

I know how part of the church reads Ephesians 5. They grab the verse about submission and skip the rest. But the text is clear about the standard for the man:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25, NIV)

Christ didn’t lead the church through fear. He went to the cross for her. In the Kingdom, leadership means the man who bleeds first, not the one who yells loudest. If your wife is afraid of you, you are not leading. You are occupying.

I was once the problem in my own marriage. I’m not writing from some imaginary pulpit, looking down at the “bad men.” I’m writing as someone who had to be confronted by God and rebuild trust brick by brick. And I learned that the first brick is this: she has to feel safe near you.

Home as a refuge

Isaiah describes the kind of man God raises up:

“Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.” (Isaiah 32:2, NIV)

That’s the calling. Out there, your wife faces a world this survey shows can be hostile to her. The question isn’t whether you can fix public safety. You can’t. The question is whether, when she walks through the door, she finds the shadow of a great rock or one more storm.

Three honest questions to ask yourself today:

1. Can she disagree with me without fear? If every disagreement turns into a fight, yelling, or three days of cold silence, your home isn’t safe. It’s tense.

2. Does she have freedom, or permission? Monitoring her phone, controlling the money, deciding who she can talk to — all of that has a name, and it isn’t “caring.”

3. Do my kids relax when I get home, or go on alert? Children are the most honest thermometer in any house.

If one of those answers hurt, don’t defend yourself. Repent. Ask for forgiveness, specifically, with no “but.” And get help: a serious pastor, an older man you trust, a licensed counselor. Real repentance welcomes accountability.

A word to the woman reading this in fear

If you are afraid of the person you live with, hear me clearly: your marriage is not worth more than your life or your children’s lives. The same verse people quote to say God hates divorce says this in the NIV: “‘The man who hates and divorces his wife,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘does violence to the one he should protect’” (Malachi 2:16, NIV). No passage of Scripture tells you to stay in danger in the name of submission. Anyone who tells you that is using the Bible against the God of the Bible.

Seeking safety is not a lack of faith. If you are in immediate danger in the U.S., call 911. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-799-7233. In Brazil, dial 180. Talk to someone you trust. Restoration, when it happens, comes after safety, never instead of it.

Closing

This survey describes a country where women live with their radar always on. We men won’t change that with a hashtag. But every Christian husband can make sure there is at least one address where that radar can finally switch off: his.

That’s the kind of man the Legendários movement exists to form. That’s the kind of home Christ wants to build.

If this stirred something in you, Vanessa Lima and I talk about marriage, faith, and rebuilding trust every week on our YouTube channel and on Instagram at O Casal Legendário. Come walk with us.