Historically, corporal punishment of wives has been promoted by most cultures. Legal and social mandates for appropriate punishment are attributed to the patriarchal foundation of most civilizations. In patriarchal societies, men were the designated rulers of society and the home. Women and children were relegated to inferior social and legal positions and, in the past, in many cultures, were considered the property or personal property of the husband. The submission of wives to their husbands has been documented throughout history and across civilizations. In order to maintain the patriarchal foundation of socialization, husbands in most cultures were obliged to appropriately punish women and children who had committed transgressions. In many cultures, the inability of husbands to properly control their wives and children has led to severe social and legal stigma or punishment. Medieval canon law allowed a woman to be punished publicly, sometimes with iron muzzles or insults, with spikes pressing the tongue. Although the court upheld the conviction, it did not overturn the common law right to corporal punishment. Rather, it found that a husband could raise a defence based on this right to prove that his wife`s injuries were the result of moderate corporal punishment. On the contrary, early court decisions in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states confirmed the rule of thumb and the right to punishment. An examination of these early opinions reveals a strong sense of preservation of the sanctity and intimacy of the home, coupled with patriarchal notions of discipline. However, subsequent notices rejected the rule and removed any formal approval from the common law.

In fact, by the late 1870s, most appellate courts had officially eliminated all vestiges of common law privilege. Shortly thereafter, the abolition of common law privilege was followed by a complete amendment to the Divorce Act to include cruelty as a ground for divorce. As a result, wives now enjoy greater legal protection before criminal and civil courts for acts of violence committed by their husbands. However, while Blackstone is credited with the rule of thumb, his writings reveal serious doubts about its adequacy, and he has suggested that, at least for members of the upper class, wives “should have the security of peace against their husbands.” Blackstone noted, however, that “the lower echelons of people who have always loved the old common law claim and still exercise their old privilege.” In addition, there seems to have been general agreement that husbands could not cause permanent harm to their wives. In extreme cases, wives can seek legal protection by filing a petition with a court. This injunction bears a striking resemblance to a modern protection order or injunction. When the order of supplication was made, the husband demanded bail or other security that he would not harm his wife when the right to punishment permitted. In the Renaissance, the France limited the discipline of women and children to physical abuse that did not result in death, adding, “The man who is not master of his wife is not worthy to be a man.” More than half a century later, the Mississippi Supreme Court again found itself with the privilege of punishment in Harris v. State, 71 Miss. 462 (1893).

Although the court overturned the husband`s conviction for lack of evidence, Harris, unlike Bradley, expressly struck down the common law rule. In Harris, the Court concluded that “blind adherence to a repugnant precedent shown in that [Bradley] case has long been completely rejected in the application of criminal law in state courts.” The final part of the punishment trilogy took place in Gross v. Staat, 135 Miss. 624 (1924). There, the Mississippi Supreme Court finally dispelled all doubts left after the Harris decision. In upholding a husband`s conviction for assault and assault on his wife, the court found that there was no privilege in favour of the husband over the wife in the usual offence of assault and assault. In addition, there is a significant misunderstanding about the actual position of the State High Court in Bradley which should finally be clarified. After a jury trial, Curtis Bradley was convicted of assault and assault against his wife. On appeal, Bradley challenged his conviction on the grounds that the judge had mistakenly rejected a jury instruction informing the jury that Bradley should be acquitted if the victim of the attack was his wife. The trial court refused to instruct the jury as requested, instead ordering the jury that a husband could lawfully commit assault and assault on his wife`s body. Thus, the only issue before the State Supreme Court was whether a husband could commit assault and assault against his wife under criminal law.

After reviewing Blackstone`s comments and guidelines for moderate corporal punishment, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction. Apparently, the injuries in Bradley were severe enough to overcome any argument that they were inflicted for the purpose of moderate punishment. The discovery and colonization of America by Western Europeans brought new opportunities for the development of law. However, the most important influences on the development of American jurisprudence were Christianity and British common law – both of which strictly adhered to the idea that husbands should serve as masters of the family. Thus, in many colonies, the common law privilege of punishment and the rule of thumb were enshrined in law and re-institutionalized. However, despite the existence of privileges, doubts soon arose among jurists as to a husband`s authority to discipline his wife. For example, Francis Wharton (1868) acknowledged the existence of privilege at common law, but stated that “the tendency of the criminal courts today is to regard the conjugal relationship as not as a defence against assault” (§830). 1882 Wife Beating Made a Crime in Maryland: First state to make beating women a crime punishable by 40 lashes or one year in prison. Married women fared no better under British common law. In his commentaries on the laws of England, Sir William Blackstone (1865) offered a testimony to the legal status of a married woman. There, Blackstone stated that “husband and wife are one person in the law; that is, the existence or legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated in that of the husband; Under whose wing, protection and cover, she does it all.

As such, the common law of the United Kingdom did not provide for an independent legal status for married women. On the contrary, wives lost their independent legal existence at the time of marriage. So what didn`t exist couldn`t be protected. The decadence according to the convenient theory of the “single legal person” justified other practices, such as the exemption from marital rape. Have you ever heard of the “rule of thumb”? In the 1700s, England passed a law allowing a man to “chastise his wife with a whip or rattan no bigger than his thumb to enforce domestic discipline.” The single legal person theory justified the right to punishment or the right of husbands to discipline their wives. Essentially, because the husband was responsible for his wife`s actions and misdeeds, he also had the right to correct and reprimand her with corporal punishment. In Commentaries, Blackstone explains that a husband “could give his wife moderate correction.” Blackstone stressed, however, that correction or punishment should be moderated.