Why would someone do that?

We had dinner with a group of neighbors yesterday, which was a lot of fun.  I have a new grill, which was pretty exciting.  Growing up in the fog belt — with European parents, yet — I’d never grilled before and had only been to a few BBQs in my life.  When my husband bought a very basic gas grill a few years ago (it was his first too), it set my standards for grilling.  I therefore assumed that it was normal (a) not to have any control over the temperature and (b) for flames constantly to shoot out around the food from dripping grease.  When friends came over the other night to grill and saw what was happening, they assured me this was not normal.  Armed with this information, my husband went out yesterday and got me a new grill so, last night, a group of us enjoyed perfect burgers.

The one thing that I didn’t like about the evening was one couple.  The husband kept putting the wife down.  Whenever she said something, he’d tell her she was wrong.  He criticized her looks in front of everybody.  He told mean little stories about her. She didn’t fight back, whether because she didn’t notice, didn’t care, or didn’t want to make others uncomfortable.  No one knew what to do.  When possible, one or the other of us would spring politely to her defense — “Oh, I really like your hair that way.”  “No, I’d have to agree; that’s been experience too.”  No one, of course, wants to get involved in someone else’s marital spat.

My question, though, which repeats the post title, is why would someone do that?  I don’t think anyone looked at the woman and thought that she was stupid, ugly or ineffectual.  I think most of the guests looked at the husband, though, and wondered why he was picking on his wife in public.  Do any of you know what motivates that kind of behavior?  Aside from being ill-mannered, it seemed kind of pointless.

Fortunately, most of the neighbors aren’t like that, with their public relationships ranging from ooky-pooky cute, to casual affection.

Speaking of the lovey-dovey couples, here’s a great Irving Berlin tune, sung fairly competently by a singer I’ve never heard of.  I prefer the Judy Garland-Fred Astaire version (from Easter Parade), but can’t find a copy to play for you:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=rq-P0Dxzf5o[/youtube]