Society’s Acceptance of Domestic Violence?

Every day we in the United States are told that before the rise of the domestic violence industry in the 1980s domestic violence against women was largely ignored by police and the courts and was regarded as acceptable behavior by society. Here are some clippings from newspapers which can assist us in verifying the truthfulness of such claims.

B. G. Jefferis, Light on Dark Corners: A Complete Sexual Science (Toronto: J. L. Nichols, 1895), p. 181

“A Man killed for Beating His Wife.” Jeffersonian Republican (Stroudsburg, Pa.), Jan. 27, 1853, p. 2

“Whipping a Wife-Beater.” National Police Gazette (New York, N.Y.), Jul. 4, 1885, illustration on p. 9

“Worthy Of The Post. - Brutes in Human Form Who Beat Their Better Halves in Pits of Anger. - Under the Mild Punishment Meted Out in Modern Times the Crime is Increasing. - Several of This Class That Have Figured In the St. Paul Courts. - Habitual Wife-Beaters - Drunkenness and Cruelty -The Wreckers of Homes.” Sunday Globe (St. Paul, Mn.), Aug. 30, 1885, p. 13

“Flogging For Wife Beaters. - The Pillory unit Whipping Post at Newcastle, Del.” Syndicated, Burlington Free Press (Vt.), Jun. 1, 1886, p. 10

[Untitled, Evening Gazette (Sterling, Il.), Mar. 31, 1888, p. 6]

“Looked Like A Jay Bird. - Wife-Beater Emmons Coated With Tar and Feathers.” St. Paul Daily Globe (Mn.), Jul. 30, 1889, p. 1

[“Wife Beater Beaten by Women.” syndicated (Trenton Times (N.J.), Sep 7, 1894, p. 6]

“Whipping Posts In The East – Commodore Gerry’s Society Is Advocating Them. – Views of Humanitarians. – Why They Think the Pillory and Stocks Are Destined to Become Familiar Objects Throughout the Republic – The Gerry Bill the Beginning of a National Crusade – Consign Punishment.” syndicated, The Daily Tribune (Salt Lake City (Ut.), Mar. 3, 1895, p. 14

[Untitled, Daily Nevada State Journal (Nv.), Mar. 22, 1896, p. 2]

“Favors The Whipping Post. - New York’s Governor Would Thus Punish Wife Beaters and Cruelty.” Syndicated, Lebanon Daily News (Pa.), May 5, 1899, p. 2

“The Whipping Post. – Experts Declare That It is a Deterrent to Crime.” Akron Daily Democrat (Oh.), Jun. 10, 1899, p. 7
 

Sarah Comstock, “Shall We Have a Whipping Post?” San Francisco Call (Ca.), Aug. 11, 1901, Magazine Section, p. 2
 

“An Almost Sure Cure For Wife Beaters Can Be Seen Daily Doing Its Good Work On Rikers Island – Learning to Be Gentle. - Men Who Abuse Their Wives Now Punished as They Deserve.” New York Tribune Illustrated Supplement (N.Y.), Apr. 12, 1903, p. 4

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“An Almost Sure Cure For Wife Beaters Can Be Seen Daily Doing Its Good Work On Rikers Island – Learning to Be Gentle. - Men Who Abuse Their Wives Now Punished as They Deserve.” New York Tribune Illustrated Supplement (N.Y.), Apr. 12, 1903, p. 4
 

“Whipping Post The Thing. - Pennsylvania Magistrate Considers Good Licking Best Punishment for Wife-Beaters.” Spirit of the Valley (Harrisonburg, Va.), Apr. 29, 1904, p. 4
 

“Capital Needs Whipping Post - Ministers and Local Authorities Heartily Favor It - Penalty For Wife-Beaters - President Roosevelt's Suggestion in Message Touching District Affairs - Meets with Warm Approval.” The Washington Post (D.C.), Dec. 25, 1904, p. 4

“Wants To Revive Whipping-Post - Southington, Conn., Selectman Wants New Law. - To Punish Wife-Beaters - He Says He Has Received Assurances of Support for Legislation - He Will Ask For from Next Legislature.” The Richmond Planet (Va.), Jan. 7, 1905, p. 2

“Some Strange Penalties.” The Minneapolis Journal (Mn.), Feb. 23, 1905, p. 14

EXCERPT: ~ Oppose Whipping Post. ~ The convention voted down by a large majority President Roosevelt’s recommendation of the whipping-post for wife-beaters.

[“Women Tell Of Work Done. - Progress of Fight for Suffrage. - Reports Made at Portland by Representatives of Various States. - Resolution Protests Against Statement In England That Roosevelt Opposes Suffrage Extension.” The Salt Lake Tribune (Ut.), Jul. 2, 1905, p. 4]

This evidence from a 1905 newspaper contradicts the following, recently published, claim included in what is widely considered to be a definitive study of domestic violence. “In the United States, flogging bills were proposed in twelve states and in the District of Columbia. Most supporters were eminently respectable – mainly Republican male lawyers, district attorneys, and grand juries. … They were supported by suffragist leaders.” (Donald G. Dutton, Rethinking Domestic Violence, (University of Columbia Press, Canada, 2006, p. 10)

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Christopher Webster, “Queer Punishments Obtaining in This Country – Borrowed from Mother England Where They Were Retained for Many Years – Signs of Some Return to Olden Forms.” Stevens Point Daily Journal (Wi.), Apr. 20, 1905, p. 3

Postcard bearing the photo upon which the April 20, 1905 illustration is based. The Delaware pillory was abolished by an act dated Mar. 20, 1905.

“Wife Beating and the Whipping Post – Shall California Adopt This Form of Punishment?” The Sunday Call (San Francisco, Ca.), Jan. 7, 1906, Literary Section, p. 10

“Chain Gang For Rich Wife Beater. – With Ankles Shackled andCarrying a Pick. – Prominent Decatur Business Man Forced to Work With Convictsfor Assaulting His Wife.” St. John Daily Sun (New Brunswick, Canada), Jan. 27,1906, p. 10

“Whipping Post for the Wife Beater – Indorsed By Officials; Opposed By Women,” The Washington Post, Jan. 28, 1906, Part 2, p. 2

“Whipping Post For The Wife Beater – Representative Adam Fathers a Measure With Such Provisions. – Only Way To Curb Brute,” Des Moines Daily News, Feb. 1, 1906, p. 3

“Wife Beating Now Decreasing – In Oregon Because of the “Whipping Post” Law. – Since Establishment of Law Only Two Men Have Been Whipped – Ninety Per Cent Decrease. – Despite Good Law Has Done, Some in the State Want Law Repealed.” Logansport Daily Reporter (In.), Jan. 10, 1907, p. 5

“Kill Him or Leave Him – Judge Tuthill’s Advice To Woman Beaten By Spouse.” The Spokesman Review (Wa.), Jul. 30, 1907, p. 10

Ethel Lloyd Patterson, “Magistrate Lazarus Believes In Whipping for Wife-Beaters – More Efficacious Than Imprisonment Where Brute Strength Is the Only Superior Force Recognized. – Spanking Is Good For Some Children. – Magistrate Doesn’t Paddle His Own, but His Wife Does It for Him When Necessary.” The Evening World (N.Y.), Oct. 7, 1908, p. 3

“Teddy Lauds Reporter Who Depended Woman.” Waterloo Evening Courier (Io.), Jul. 9, 1910, p. 1

 

Selene Armstrong, “Women Oppose Return to the Whipping Post -  Shocked at the Mode of Punishment for Wife-Beaters. - Says Cruelty Never Improved A Man - Well-Known Women of District Express Their Views on the Subject. - Wife of Victim Tells Lashing Given Her of Husband. - Declares Stain Is Everlasting - Her Children, She Says, "Will Be Pointed Out by Others.” The Washington Times (D.C.), Mar. 11, 1911, p. 6

“Wife Beater Given Taste Of The Lash - Five Cuts on Bare Back Brings Groans From Lips of Baltimore Man.” syndicated, Sheboygan Daily Press (Wi.), Apr. 28, 1911, p. 6

“Faints Under Lash. – Wife Beater Whipped at Post in Portland, Ore. – With A Cat O’ Nine Tails. – Deputy Sheriff Wields Weapon Lustily in Brutal Husband's Bared Back Until Victim’s Howls Are Heard Throughout the Jail.” Warren Mirror (Pa.), Sep. 6, 1911, p. 6

“Wife Beater Loses Mind – Man Whipped by Order of Court Becomes Insane.” The Daily News (Frederick, Md.), Dec. 4, 1911, p. 8

Nixola Greely-Smith, “Favors Whipping-Post for Wife-Beaters, But No State Support for Their Victims,” The Evening World (New York, N.Y.), Jan. 20, 1912, p. 3

“Oppose Whipping Post For Wife-Beaters,” The Tacoma Times (Md.), Feb. 21, 1913, p. 3

In parts of Kent [England] a quaint old tradition still survives. When a man is known to be a confirmed wife-beater, his neighbours collect noiselessly under his window at night and proceed to take and sew the victim in bag of chaff. The following morning  the culprit is asked, to make a grim pleasantry, “if he has done his thrashing yet.”

[Arthur Watts (illustrator), “Where A Man Turns Feminist; An Old Kentish Method Of Punishing A Wife-Beater, The Graphic (London, England), Aug. 9, 1913, p. 275]
 

“Strong Arm Of Law for Wife Beaters – Good Sound Hand-Picked Lickings to Be Dealt Out by Justice Miller. Fears Not The Huskiest,” The Gazette Times (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Feb. 1, 1914, p. 1

“Wife Beater Is Forced to Leave - George Logan of Malvern Visited by Delegation of Citizens and Made to Depart,” Mills County Tribune (Glenwood, Io.), Feb. 26, 1914, p. 1

“Wife-Beater Shot to Death Five Men Are Under Arrest ,” Reno Evening Gazette (Nv.), Aug. 27, 1915, p. 2

Marguerite Mooers Marshall, “Shall City Put Its Wife Beaters in Pillory On Broadway? Better Than Jail, Says Judge,” The Evening World (New York, N.Y.), Jun. 30, 1916, p. 3; 19

“Will Chain Wife Beaters To Post On Street Corner!” The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Jul. 10, 1916, p. 20

“A Public Square Pillory for Criminals in 1916 – How Kansas Has Revived This Ancient Punishment to Curb the Epidemic of Wife-Beating and How the Figure Shed a New Light on the Strange Psychology of Woman-Thrashing All Over the World,” The Salt Lake Tribune (Ut.), magazine section, Aug. 6, 1916, p. 2

“Physical Battles For Wife Beaters Milwaukee Judge Retains Scrappers For That Purpose,” Fitchburg Daily Sentinel (Ma.), Jan. 3, 1917, p. 5

“Wife Beaters’ Pictures In City Hall.” The Syracuse Herald (N.Y.), Jan 24, 1917, p. 21

“Wife Beater Must Fight – Judge Orders Him to Training Camp to Prepare to Try His Talents on Him.” The Maurice Times (Io.), Nov. 28, 1918, p. 3

“Family Rows – The Police Magistrates’ Greatest Problems.” The Burlington Hawk-Eye (Io.), Nov. 23, 1919, sec. 2, p. 1
 

Untitled, Bedford Gazette (Pa.), Jun. 18, 1920, p. 4

[“The Inquiring Reporter – Every Day He Asks Five Persons,Picked At Random, A Question,” Chicago Tribune (Il.), May 3, 1921, p. ?]

“Whipping Post For Wife Beaters,” The Herald (Algiers, La.), Sep. 29, 1921, p. 1

 “Wife Beater Forced To Kiss Her Foot,” Oakland Tribune (Ca.), May 14, 1922, p. 1

“Gives Wife Beater Dose of Own Medicine – Alderman Blackens Both Eyes For Offender and Fines Him.” The News (Frederick, Md.), Oct. 20, 1922, p. 9

“Wife Beater Gets Beating – Maryland Man, Convicted of Wife Abuse, Publicly Lashed In Jail At Baltimore,” Iowa City Press-Citizen (Io.), May 6, 1926, p. 7

“Judge’s Pants-Warming Party,” syndicated (NEA), The Mexia Daily News (Tx.), Feb. 8, 1927, p. 8

Bonita Witt, “Doesn’t Relish Punishment Since He Wasn't a Wife Beater After All.” The Sandusky Register (Oh.), Feb. 13, 1927, section 2, p. 1

“Whipping  Post and Cat-o-Nine-Tails Revived as Baltimore Punished Wife-Beater,” Syracuse Herald (N.Y.), Mar. 2, 1938, Sec. 2, p. 1
 

“Husband Beater Gets No Mercy,” The Brainerd Daily Dispatch (Mn.), Jan. 18, 1940, p. 4

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Throughout the period covered in this selection of clippings, courts in the United States also prosecuted husband beaters – but in much smaller numbers. While wife beaters were sentenced to flogging as late as 1953, no mention has so far been found of a woman being sentenced to flogging or any other form of corporal punishment for the offense of husband beating.

On HUSBAND BATTERING: Suzanne Steinmetz concluded that "the most unreported crime is not wife beating -- it's husband beating"  

In 1977, Steinmetz released results from several studies showing that the percentage of wives who have used physical violence is higher than the percentage of husbands, and that the wives' average violence score tended to be higher, although men were somewhat more likely to cause greater injury. She also found that women were as likely as men to initiate physical violence, and that they had similar motives for their violent acts (Steinmetz, Suzanne K. "The Battered Husband Syndrome" Victimology 2, 1977-1978, p. 499)  See online article “Husband Battering”

“Wife Beater Lashed by County Sheriff – 30 [sic] Strokes Administered to Nude Prisoner for Attacking Spouse,” The Morning Herald (Hagerstown, Md,), Oct. 20, 1945, p. 1; & “Gets 10 Lashes For Beating Wife,” Altoona Mirror (Oh.), Oct. 22, 1945, p. 13

The 1945 Busching case was deemed a fit subject for teaching children about the evil of domestic violence as is evidenced by a comic book issued not long after the Maryland wife-beater's flogging.

“Wife-Beater Gets 20 Lashes In Delaware Under Old Law –Nine-Thonged Whip Used by Warden To Flog Bare-Backed Prisoner,” The PittsburghPress (Pa.), Jun. 16, 1952, p. 7

“Northeast Kansas Court Houses – Atchison County, Atchison,” Atchison Sunday Globe (Ks.), Nov. 3, 1957, p. 8

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To get an idea of just how extreme the distortion of history is, as it is presented in an ideologically sanitized form by cultural Marxists, take a look at this brief summary of the period which this post covers in a highly regarded professional law journal. The judicial beatings of male abusers, the floggings, the pillorying, the hard labor prison sentences are all sent down the memory hole by the author, leaving only a discussion of “oppressive” linguistics to guide the reader’s understanding of what was going on between 1890 and 1960 in the United States with respect to legal attitudes towards domestic violence.

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Here's an academic article which cleverly uses cherry-picked legal language to give the false impression that domestic violence was not treated as a serious crime in the past:

Patricia Sully, “Taking It Seriously: Repairing Domestic Violence Sentencing in Washington State,” Seattle University Law Review [Vol. 34:963]

Section A. - History of Domestic Violence Law in the United States

“By the 1890s, American courts completely abandoned the idea that a husband may legally chastise his wife within reasonable limits.

While laws prohibiting chastisement were enacted, they were rarely enforced. Instead, courts began to ignore domestic violence based on “domestic harmony” concerns; domestic violence was perceived to be an internal family matter, best left free from state interference. As one court stated, “We will not inflict upon society the greater evil of raising the curtain upon domestic privacy, to punish the lesser evil of trifling violence.” Instead of using the “hierarchal-based” chastisement language, jurists began to employ “affective privacy” language. Such language invoked “the feelings and spaces of domesticity.” More importantly, it translated an antiquated idea the rule of chastisement into a modern context that felt profoundly reasonable domestic privacy. By invoking marital- or domestic-privacy justifications, the courts preserved the system of oppression by changing only the language. These justifications held firm until the 1960s, when domestic violence once again became a national issue.” ( p. 970)

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The notion that because some judges in the past wrote about domestic violence as “a private matter,” we can ignore the well-documented reality of widespread societal condemnation and prosecution for domestic violence cases throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries can be ignored, appeared in this 2003 article:

“Despite the tremendous toll on both the victims and society, domestic violence was not

recognized as a public health issue in the US until relatively recently. With the women’s movement of the 1970s, domestic violence was increasingly recognized as a public, not a private, issue.” [Amy Farmer and Jill Tiefenthaler, “Explaining The Recent Decline In Domestic Violence,”  Contemporary Economic Policy, No. 21 (2003), pp. 158-172]

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Here’s a quote from another hoax article, this time from a mainstream media source, from 1986:

“The policy of benign neglect toward domestic violence was tolerated until feminists began focusing attention on the issue of spouse abuse a decade ago and insisted that wife beaters be treated like other violent criminals. The nation's police have finally begun to take domestic violence seriously.”  (“Attitudes change toward domestic violence,” Newsweek, March 3,  1986; Vol. 107 Issue 9, p. 58)

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Another example:

Findlaw claims: “Police responses to domestic violence have historically been clouded by notions, for example, the idea that a wife is the "property" of a husband and he has the right to carry out whatever behavior is necessary to "keep her in line." This idea and others like it reflect attitudes held by the greater society. Further aggravating the situation was the perception that domestic violence is not "real police work," and such disputes are private matters that should be kept within the household. Prior to 1980, when domestic situations were brought to the attention of police, calls were often diverted by dispatchers, given a lower priority, or officers responded to the scene and departed again as quickly as possible without achieving any type of meaningful intervention. Laws such as the "rule of thumb" (whereby it was legal for a husband to beat his wife with a stick not wider than his thumb) were still on the books until very recent times.” [“Domestic Violence: History of Police Responses,” FindLaw.com, Mar. 28, 2013]

Response: Much of this has been proven to be false. The rest is cleverly deceptive: how long “prior to 1980?” Perhaps when police became militarized in the 1970s the policy was to reduce priorities for domestic violence. But this was definitely not the case in the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th century. The “attitudes held by the greater society” have, in throughout the history of the US, been firmly hostile to male domestic violence offenders. There never has been a single “rule of thumb” statute on the books.

Findlaw is owned by Westlaw, the largest law publisher in the world.

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Yet another example:

“[O]nly since the 1970s has the criminal justice system begun to treat domestic violence as a serious crime, not as a private family matter.”

From the entry: “Domestic Violence” on encyclopedia.com

This claim has been proven to be false.

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Other References:

Elizabeth Pleck, “The Whipping Post for Wife-Beaters 1876-1906,” in David Levine & Leslie Page Moch, eds., Essays on the Family and Historical Change, pp. 127 ff. (Texas A&M Press, 1983)

On the “Rule of Thumb” hoax: Christina Hoff Sommers, “The Rule of Thumb”  from Who Stole Feminism? - (Simon & Schuster, New York 1994) (Excerpted from Ch 9 "Noble Lies" pp. 203-208)

Robert Sheaffer, ‘The "Rule of Thumb for Wife-Beating" Hoax’

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SEE ADDENDUM POSTS:

19th Century Intolerance Towards Domestic Violence
Treatment of Domestic Violence Against Women Before 1960

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Some of the material in this post is referenced in “How feminism conned society, and other not-so-tall tales...” by Girl Writes What, Youtube

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[12,185-8/28/18; 14,410-3/9/21]
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