Today’s Moderate Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Throughout most of Western history, husbands have had the legal and moral right to beat their wives to provide “moderate correction,” according to Untying the Knot: A Short History of Divorce by Roderick Phillips. The Catholic Church accepted this right of the husband as did most of the courts of Europe. The key question, though, is: What was considered “moderate correction”? “The violence should not draw blood,” stated Phillips, citing examples from many law codes, “and if a stick were used, it should be no thicker than a man’s thumb.” That is actually the origin of the expression “rule of thumb.” Many everyday proverbs from the Renaissance contain advice such as, “Don’t expect anything good from an ass, a nut or a wife, unless you have a stick in your hand.” Or, “Good or bad, the horse gets the spur; good or bad, the wife gets the stick.”
The basic legal principle – expressed in canon and civil law – was that since a husband was responsible for his wife’s actions, he also had the right to punish her to teach her. The broad acceptance of wife-beating started to change with the Protestant Reformation, which frowned on the practice and made it a crime. In America, the Puritan colonies in New England outlawed wife-beating as early as 1641, but in merry olde England it wasn’t until 1891 that a husband’s right to “moderate correction” was officially abolished.
Culled from: An Underground Education