The
Outrageous History of Wife Beating
735 B.C.
In Rome, the Law of Chastisement
came into effect. Because a husband was liable for his wife’s actions, this law
gave husbands the absolute rights to physically discipline their women provided
that he beat her with a rod or switch no greater than the girth of the base of
the man’s right thumb. This rule became a guideline for more than a thousand
years.
300 A.D.
The Church affirms a husband's
authority to discipline a wife. Holy Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, has
his wife burned alive when she was no longer of use to him.
900 to 1300 A.D.
In medieval Europe, the Church
sanctions wife beatings. Priests advise abused wives to win their husbands'
good will through increased devotion and obedience. Women are viewed as a
lesser species, without the same feelings and capacity for suffering than men.
1400 A.D.
A Friar in Siena writes Rules of
Marriage, religious laws that support wife-beating.
A woman named Christine de Pizan
accuses men of cruelty and beating their wives. She begins the fight for women’s
basic humanity, better education, and fair treatment in marriages.
1427 A.D.
Saint Bernardino of Siena asks his
male parishioners to restrain themselves when disciplining their wives and to
show them the same mercy they would show their hens and pigs.
1500 A.D.
In England, Lord Hale, a woman hater
who regularly burned women at the stake as witches condones marital rape.
Apparently, a husband cannot be guilty of rape because marriage was a contract
and when a wife gave herself to a husband, she could not retract her consent.
Early settlers in America permit wife-beating
for correctional purposes, however there is growing movement to declare wife-beating
illegal.
In Russia, the Church sanctions the
oppression of women by issuing an ordinance that made it legal for a man to
beat or kill his wife for disciplinary purposes. But if a Russian woman killed her
husband for injustices, the penalty was for her to be buried alive with only her
head above the ground, and left to die.
In England, women and children are
taught that it was their duty to obey the man of the house. Violence was encouraged.
1700 A.D.
In Germany, two lesbians were placed
on trial for lesbianism and domestic violence. Both women were found guilty. One
was sentenced to death. The other was sent to jail for 3 years and then
banished, not because she was the victim of the violence, but because she was
simple-minded.
1800 A.D.
England abolishes the right for men
to chastise women.
Sweden gives men and women equal
inheritance rights.
The American Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
are founded long before any organization to prevent cruelty to women.
A man in North Carolina was charged
with striking his wife with a switch about the size of one of his fingers, but
smaller than his thumb. The court upheld his acquittal on the grounds that no court
should interfere with family government in trifling cases.
General Sherman, when he was negotiating
the Treaty of 1868 with the Navajos insisted that the Navajos select male
leaders only. The rule stripped Navajo women of their ability to participate in
decision-making and taught Navajo men that it was okay to rob women of economic
and political power, and to beat them.
Francis Power Cobbe published Wife
Torture in England. In it, she documented 6,000 of the most brutal assaults on
women over a 3 year period who had been maimed, blinded, trampled, burned and
murdered. She believed that abuse by men continued because of the belief that a
man's wife was his property. Her concerns resulted in a new law that allowed victims
of violence to obtain a legal separation from the husband; entitled them
custody of the children; and to retain earnings and property secured during the
separation. But only if the husband was convicted of aggravated assault and the
court determined she was in grave danger.
In England, the law was changed to
permit a wife who had been habitually beaten by her husband to the point of
life endangerment to separate from him, but not to divorce him
During the reign of Queen Victoria,
new laws came into effect whereby wives could no longer be kept under lock and
key, life-threatening beatings were considered grounds for divorce, and wives
and daughters could no longer be sold into prostitution.
1900 A.D.
A French court rules that husbands
have no right to beat their wives. Prior to this, the Napoleonic Code decreed
that, “Women, like walnut trees, should be beaten every day.”
