How Well Do You Know Your Thai Spouse?

[E-Dork]

I found this blog quite readable.

How well do you know your Thai spouse?
Gruesome accounts of Thai wives who kill for money
31st January 2011


With recent newspaper reports showing a number of unsolved deaths of expats in Thailand, and with the finger of suspicion pointed squarely at their spouse, how concerned should you be that it could happen to you?

Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis will know that I mostly stick to issues related to education in the Thai context. However, in the next few blogs, I am going to look at the dynamics of relationships between Thai women and expats. The first blog focuses on the very notion of marriage between people from different backgrounds with a specific emphasis on how this works in Thailand. Subsequent blogs will focus on other aspects like the Thai female psyche, and elements like jealousy, trust and the legal ramifications of what happens when these kinds of marriages fail.




(above photo) Raymond Hinds' wife Fon and her lover Lek

Exogamy - custom enjoining marriage outside one's own group. In some cases, the rules of exogamy may also specify the outside group into which an individual must marry. The severity of enforcement of exogamous restrictions varies greatly across cultures and may range from death to mild disapproval. (Encyclopedia Britanicca)

How well do you know your Thai spouse? This question may seem quite absurd to some as marriage is a lifelong commitment and not one that is taken lightly. Yet for all the benefits of marrying outside one's own society: the opportunity to integrate into another culture, to learn another language, and to start a new life in a distant land, there are also many pitfalls as most expats reading this will have already experienced. In Thailand, although I confess I don't have the exact statistics, I think it's fair to say that most marriages are what are termed Morganatic marriages e.g. marriages between an older man and a younger woman where the man is considerably wealthier than the woman. Such men are often retirees, with one or even two western marriages behind them. While this may not be the norm, in practice, it is probably the most common type of exogamic marriage found in Thailand.

The British Embassy in Bangkok processes on average 70 marriages a week mainly between older Brits with young Thai wives. However, given the statistics for the global divorce rate show that two out of every three marriages fail, it is wise to consider how even more difficult it is to marry a foreigner, live in their community, and actually manage to make the marriage work. It should be remembered that when you relocate to a completely new country, communication between old friends and family is sometimes forgotten, adding to a feeling of isolation, and with it, a detachment from the social network and ties that stabilized and centred that person throughout their life. It should also be remembered that as the old saying goes, "many visitors old and new leave their homeland to travel to Thailand, but unfortunately they leave their brains at the airport".

The latest death
Many will have seen the recent newspaper reports of male expat spouses meeting their demise and the more than passing suspicion that it was at the hands of their spouse. The following is information gleaned about three cases from the following sources:
Andrew Drummond's website - British pensioner clubbed to death in latest Thai wife killing. The Guardian newspaper - Thailand family and relationships The Times newspaper - Thailand article

The latest death is that of 68-year old Raymond Hind from Cheshunt in the UK. He was a former garage owner who was clubbed and stabbed to death at his home in Hua Hin last May. What is interesting about this case is that two months earlier he had been attacked at his home and was so traumatized that he had decided to keep a shotgun in his bedroom. Just as distressing, he had been diagnosed with throat cancer and had clotted arteries and it was common knowledge that he was living on borrowed time anyway. Why then did someone kill him?

Attention immediately turned to his wife Bunnag known as ‘Fon', 38, her brother, and her boyfriend, after Thai police failed to establish a legal case. After the murder, the Thai police held a press conference stating it was an open and shut case but, after mysteriously receiving bail, a deposition objecting to the bail was signed by thirty four Thai policemen. Fon's boyfriend, Thanakorn Bussa, admitted he had been commissioned by Fon to carry out the murder with her brother, Pomgrit. A knife had even been bought by Fon for the grizzly dispatching of her husband. Fon is reported to have told some policemen while in custody that £1.5 million (74 million baht) would be available in an obvious attempt at a bribe. Two close friends of Raymond Hind, also pensioners, have now put up £11,000 (530,000 baht) into a fund to begin a series of court actions on behalf of their murdered friend and his 30-yr-old daughter, Zoe.

Further gruesome cases
Two other cases deserve a mention. The first involved a Brit called Toby Charnaud, a former wealthy farmer from Chippenham, Wiltshire who was murdered in 2007 after he had divorced his Thai wife Pannada, 35. As the saying goes, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" and she set about getting her hands on his estate through their son. The husband actually had a premonition of his own death and wrote a short story about it. He was beaten to death, and his body was barbecued then cut into pieces and scattered around Kaeng Krajan National Park near the Burmese border to be eaten by tigers and other wildlife. Pannada and two cousins were convicted of the murder and jailed for life in September 2008 after Charnaud's sister and parents in the UK hired a lawyer and private eye to investigate the case.

In 2008 Ian Beeston, a 69-yr-old retired engineer at the Ford plant in Dagenham, was beaten and stabbed to death by his wife's Thai lover in the north-eastern Thai province of Roi-et. According to an article in the UK's The Guardian Newspaper, the Thai police say he took seven hours to die after the attack at his house. Ian Beeston, like Charnaud, knew it was coming and had been waiting for his own death. He sat alone in his palatial home with a stun gun by his side to protect himself. He wrote a letter to his lawyers saying: "It is only a matter of time now. I am in real fear for my own life." His wife had already sold his land against his wishes. Thai lawyer Boonchoo Yensabai, an expert on these cases, who helped prosecute in the Toby Charnaud case warned: "In the worst of these cases if the wife has access she can, and will attempt to pay off the relevant authorities and foreigners will wonder may why the case is going nowhere."


What have you got to lose?
There are no doubt other cases where murder most foul has been committed but few of these cases ever reach court. In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that Thailand is not the safest place to be if you are, aged, alone, and have money. This is especially true if you factor in the several suicides each year of expat men in places like Pattaya and Phuket, the motor vehicle accidents which often claim more lives or leave people dismembered, and the assaults or murder of expats and backpackers.

Only today I read that an unsolved case of a Canadian backpacker who was murdered in Pai three years ago has been solved and a Thai policeman has been jailed for 25 years. That's good news but may not be enough to allay the fears of those who see a crime rate among expats that is spiraling out of control. According to the Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, under the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Centre for International Crime Prevention, Thailand has a yearly average of 5,140 murders making it 8th of 49 countries surveyed.


Many do not understand that living in Thailand long term is quite different from having a holiday there, and there are many Thai women who believe expats have a limitless supply of money. Adding to this reality, many Thai men envy the fact that expats in general have more money than they do. Of course, not all Thai women and men are like this, and I'm sure the vast majority are decent, caring, law-abiding, Buddhist practicing citizens. That said, it would be prudent to think about what you've got to lose if you are already in a relationship with a Thai lady and contemplating marriage, or are a retiree just in search of a new start in Thailand. Besides your money, you could lose considerably more and so it might be wise to think about a pre-nup or finding a way to safeguard your children's inheritance by making a living will. It could just turn out to be one of the smartest things you ever did. Isn't it time you asked yourself that fundamental question - how well do you know your Thai spouse?

So, what were the reasons for marrying your current wife? (Yes luuurve is one but what others) What do you share in common? How long did you know each other before you were married? I will share with you my answers to these questions when I have a minute from work to write more.

[nickinkip]

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_m ... per-capita

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur-crime-murders


its all to do with averages, and money does influence this.......