Chief Vitalstatistix, in Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s Asterix comics, has only one fear: that of the ‘sky falling on his head tomorrow’. What is more palpable, though, is his mortal fear of his dear wife Impedimenta. But even the Gaulish chief and resistor of Romans has been put under the shade by a gentleman by the name of Noushad who went AWOL for a year-and-a-half as he was ‘scared of his wife’. Uxoriphobia – Latin ‘uxor’ meaning wife, ‘-phobia‘ meaning fear of – is not as uncommon as alpha males would like us to think. But such an extreme case involving not returning home since November 2021 is, well, a bit rare even in strained partnerships where traditionally the husband drives the wife away.
There is another twist to the tale involving the runaway 34-year-old hubby from Kerala. His wife, the 25-year-old Afsana, comes across as much more than an untamed shrew, as she had led the local police up the garden wall by stating that her husband had been killed and his body was buried. That turned out to be a wild goose chase as Noushad was ultimately found in another district. The man also explained (sic) that he was ‘thrashed by people his wife used to call’. Uxoriphobic for a reason or not, let not Noushad’s case now become a campaign point for scary wives driving the fear of the sky – or fists – falling on their husbands’ heads.
