How was domestic violence viewed prior to the Women's Movement?

"How was domestic violence viewed prior to the Women's Movement?"

As unfortunate, unfortunately

People used to be able to admit that Stinkfish were massively manipulative mental abusers (which they are), so a few slaps in moderation was considered to even the field and quiet the money-grubbing beasts.

Lol r2

It was viewed as a family matter and nobody else's business. A man could do anything he liked in his own home except maybe murder.

In classic screwball comedies a hubby spanking the little wife for laffs was a thing.

Think again, r4

It was a fact of life, especially for working class women who were effectively stuck because of the stigma associated with divorce (if it was even allowed) and a large brood of children that needed to be fed.

It was easier for men to walk away because they usually controlled the money.

Just like homophobic violence. No big deal. Those manipulative fags and bitches needed to learn who's in charge.

Mild violence was seen as normal, legal, and acceptable, within limits. Same as corporal punishment for children. Wives were told that if they behaved themselves and acted sweet and obedient to their husbands he wouldn't do it again, which everyone now knows is bullshit.

It wasn't seen as acceptable for a husband to knock out teeth, break bones, or kill his wife - unless she'd been cheating on him. Then, the judicial system might very well let him off because of "the unwritten law", so of course he'd always claim she was if the courts were involved for violence or a divorce. If he claimed she was cheating in a divorce, he'd get custody of the kids and wouldn't pay a cent in alimony.

R2 's post history is disturbing. I'll never understand gay men with an irrational hatred of women who spew it all over the internet. Mommy issues? On the down low?

My parents were raised in Ireland when divorced was illegal so once you got married there was no getting out. My father witnessed so much domestic violence as a child (most of the perps alcoholics) that it deeply affected him for the rest of his life. He saw women beaten black and blue, women being thrown out of windows, women being scalded with boiling water..Only once did the men in the estate ever intervene and that was when the husband was beating his wife on the street in front of his own children. The priest would tell women to 'offer it up' meaning saw some prayers and you'll get a few years knocked off purgatory for your suffering on earth.

Lucy had nothing to fear compared to Gilligan who was always being beaten by his partner the Skipper. And people laughed about it!

It was likely regarded as a form of stress relief.

r11 is deeply depressing

I remember National Geographic ran a story about Pakistan several years ago. One of the images was of a woman going into surgery. Her husband had held her face against a stove and you can imagine how much damage she'd sustained. And the author added that while widespread, spousal abuse in the country goes mostly unpunished

It was viewed as a private issue. As much as people love to lionise the years between 1959 and 1975, it seemed to produce a lot of severely damaged individuals.

There's a small subculture now of people, particularly young women, who proudly declare themselves " trad" or " tradwifes". I'd like to send these idiots back in a time machine to a circa 1960 impoverished working class home with 5 kids and a perpetually pissed off husband.

[quote]There's a small subculture now of people, particularly young women, who proudly declare themselves " trad" or " tradwifes".

Ugh. I assume they're evangelical Christians?

It’s so odd. We get to blame The Great Depression or World War II or whatever, but it’s always an impotent temper tantrum that dehumanizes the weak.

This pops up in my family generation to generation - might makes right and I can do whatever I want to you and nobody will believe you.

Use of the court system usually slams these fuckers down.

[quote] 'offer it up'

Offer it to Jesus, R11?

until the 90s you could rape your wife in Virginia without legal consequences. The concept a man could rape his wife was something older folks couldn't quite wrap their heads around, similar to trans rights today. I only mention virginia because it was the last state to change their laws on the subject.

Virginia just passed a law requiring dogs to be sheltered from extreme cold at the end of 2020. Before that, dogs could be housed in outside structures as long as there was a roof, food, and water. The fact it might be 37 degrees was not a problem.

I am OP, and I'd like to add an observation I've made over the years.

The "this is a fact of life" mentality seems to persist among some women in the lower middle / lower classes. In my 20s I worked at a shitty retail job. There was a point where nearly every female employee was in a physically abusive relationship. Not all, but most. One girl around 20 talked nonchalantly about wanting to leave her boyfriend but adding, "He says he'll kill himself if I do. And he will." She didn't seem to realize how manipulative it was. Another woman, close to 60, would come in with bruises on her arms. We quickly learned her alcoholic boyfriend was the culprit. She eventually befriended a manager -- who was in an abusive marriage herself -- and I think they supported each other in their efforts to leave their partners. They might have gotten an apartment together; I can't remember. Another woman's boyfriend would put cigarettes out on her. Yet ANOTHER woman's husband broke her arm.

I think most of these women just accepted abuse as something that came with the territory. And it shocked me. But then I think ... in most cases, it's probably what they grew up with and it's what they knew.

And this was around 2005, for reference.

But I should add, my question relates more to societal attitudes, not attitudes within certain demographics. However, I assume there was still a stigma surrounding spousal abuse among the upper classes even in the 1940s-1960s, that it was only something that occurred among the poor and uneducated.

You assume wrong, OP, and that’s especially true for emotional abuse.

It always blows me away in the Hitchcock movie Marnie - Sean Connery (in a booming voice) announces to Tippi Hedren “I want to beat the hell out of you, Marnie!” - As I recall in that movie he forces her to marry him or he will turn her over to the police for theft. He proceeds to force her into the “Marital Bed.”

R21, you just fucked your own thread.

It does a woman good

I suppose I am limited. Could someone please explain what r24 means?

Marital rape is still legal in Germany.

R16 a fair number don't seem to be religious at all. I suspect they just romanticize the idea of being the perfect little housewives .

R27: not anymore.

[quote]For example, (frighteningly) marital rape was not considered a "thing" in many states as late as the 1980s, the logic being it was impossible for a man to rape his own wife. Then the Ron and Nicole murders changed things regarding how police responded to domestic disturbance calls.

You just said that. Out loud.

Heard constant stories in the 1970's of men putting their wives in the hospital with a broken nose. Or regularly beating up their wives or girlfriends because they were drunk or had a really bad day at work.

Saddened by the earlier posts on this thread blaming wives for provoking their men in some way. In reality that was rarely the case. Same as with most of the extreme and constant physical abuse of children didn't occur because the kids were bad.

If you paid attention socially, you would know that women up until the 70s were to be subservient to men. That's the way it was, that's what the laws supported. Even the Bible supported it. Its been that way since Adam and Eve. It was legal to beat your wife because she was considered your property. Up until the 70s, women could not even get a credit card without a husband or father signing on their behalf. I might remind you, its only been about 100 years that women have been allowed to vote. Women still do not have equal rights because of people like Phyllis Schlafly who single handedly destroyed the ERA just when it was about to pass because God forbid, a woman be independent.

Women's Lib was 1970s, but domestic violence was still taboo as an issue well into the 1980s. I recall that one of Reagan's appointees, named John Fedders, was beating his wife on a regular basis. Because they were an affluent family who lived in suburban Maryland, it was assumed 'that sort of thing' only happened in lower-class neighborhoods.

[quote] However, I assume there was still a stigma surrounding spousal abuse among the upper classes even in the 1940s-1960s, that it was only something that occurred among the poor and uneducated.

You are incorrect. I used to be a domestic violence counselor and statistically there is no difference between wealthy and poor households. The difference is that the wealthy are better able to conceal abuse and use the courts rather than law enforcement to deal with it.

Richard Nixon beat Pat so badly she was hospitalized. Many people knew about it but no one intervened.

Was and still is hilarious.

Marital rape was criminalized first in 1975. The last state outlawed in 1993. Domestic violence in a real problem that is not caused by women.

That's kind of what I meant, r34, although I didn't express it well I guess.

My point was that, although we've seen societal shifts in attitudes toward domestic violence, the chestnut that "it only happens in the lower classes" seems to have remained constant.

See my post at r20. I now work in academia and have never heard of a colleague admitting to being in an abusive relationship, although surely some must be.

I hope the assholes above saying women “are asking for it “ are joking.

Women were often bumping into doors back then. It was nothing, ok? Just clumsiness. Let’s talk about something else.

Actually, a number of studies show that domestic abuse is linked to socioeconomic class--women without financial resources were at higher risk of being abused by a partner. In fact, a woman's risk of being abused increased if she looked for a job outside of the home.

I'd rather my man would hit me, than to jump right up and quit me ... I swear I won't call no copper, if I'm beat up by my papa Tain't nobody's business if I do

R2 has trans rage.

He hit me and it felt like a kiss.

Helen Reddy's husband broke her arm during a fight.

I grew up in the 70s and remembering being baffled by the lionization of Jackie Gleason, whose catchphrase on The Honeymooners was him threatening to punch his wife in the face.

Key lines in Streetcar Named Desire “But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark-that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant”

And Carousel “He hit me mother, he hit me hard, but it didn’t hurt- it felt like a kiss.”

Much of the replies here made me desperately sad but R11 got to me most, considering what I've heard about the Mother and Baby Homes report Ireland just released. It seems like the conspiracy of silence around domestic abuse has continued, even if the behavior is not as accepted in popular culture anymore.

R47's post is a good reminder of the revolting lines put into the mouths of female characters by clueless male playwrights

Women pre-feminism recognized that there was a problem, but cultural, especially religious, attitudes made it impossible for them to advocate for real solutions, such as freeing women to find real employment and control their own finances. Prohibition was an early women's rights movement because women blamed liquor on men's violence.

The view from 1964: "violent, temporary therapy" with "helpful overtones."

[quote]Psychiatrists have delved for years into the psyche of the alcoholic in an attempt to understand what drives him to drink. But rarely have doctors investigated the unlovely but all too frequent byproduct of alcoholism — wife beating.

[quote]Now, in the Archives of General Psychiatry, three psychiatrists probe the personalities of the beater and the beaten. One of their findings: those who fight together and stay together do so because each needs the other to balance out his own mental quirks.

[quote]In their research, Drs. John E. Snell, Richard J. Rosenwald and Ames Robey dealt with 37 cases referred to them by Massachusetts courts. Most of the husbands, the doctors discovered, fell into a definite pattern. Though reasonably hard-working and outwardly respectable, they were in reality "shy, sexually ineffectual mother's boys." The wives also fitted a pattern—"aggressive, efficient, masculine and sexually frigid."

[quote]Usually the wife was boss, and her weak-willed husband was content to play the subservient role—until he had a few drinks. Then "role alternation" would take place, and the husband would insist belligerently upon his conjugal rights. The wife, whose father had usually been a wife beater, would resist. The ensuing fight had, however, helpful overtones. "The periods of violent behavior by the husband," the doctors observed, "served to release him momentarily from his anxiety about his ineffectiveness as a man, while giving his wife apparent masochistic gratification and helping probably to deal with the guilt arising from the intense hostility expressed in her controlling, castrating behavior."

[quote]Such violent, temporary therapy is hardly what the psychiatrist would prescribe. But the doctors concluded that the battlers seem to need "a frequent alternation of passive and aggressive roles to achieve a working equilibrium" and seldom change their ways until a third party horns in. The third party is usually a teen-aged son with protective feelings toward his mother and a less than friendly attitude toward Dad. What with the size of teen-agers these days, the fight often gets so furious that Mom finally begins to worry that someone may get hurt. Then she calls the cops.

My grandfather used to hit my grandmother. He suffered from PTSD after fighting in WW2. I think that was part of the issue for many men in that generation. Therapy was not mainstream back then. People just drank and bottled up their feelings. That’s what both of my grandparents did. Get drunk and argue. My grandfather went into shell shock one time at a restaurant and another former military man happened to be there and was able to calm him down.

I hadn't realized that aspect of prohibition r50

Well r51 is enlightening ...

Euphemisms in the '60's; showing her who's boss; keeping her in line; getting a little out of hand; showing her who wears the pants in the family; and my personal favorite, putting her in her place.

We had an abusive neighbor an ex-military, German-American, beat his wife, kids and dog. He actually had a whipping post that he would tie the kids to/use as a threat. I often wonder WHET that family. Weirdly, my older brother has no memory of this family, like other traumatic events I remember vividly he says, "never happened".

And then there is this woman, posting directly from the 1950s

Another gem:

I hope women don't take this crap seriously

This thread reminds of of a very good TV movie with Ted Danson and Glenn Close. Ted molests their daughter and it is treated like incestual attraction rather than rape. It’s a very weird take now, but revealing of the times, and revealing about how’re “excuse” of incest is used as a coping mechanism by various members of the family, rather than viewing it as abuse and sexual assault.

Last one.

This is funny to me, because most physically abusive guys I've had contact with claim exactly this -- that *she* is the real aggressor and he was just defending himself. It's certainly a line they use when the cops show up. She was out of control and attacking ME!

#1 Red Flag You Can Ignore: A Physical Defender

If you initiate physical aggression by pummeling him with your fists, kicking him, shoving him or trying to get something by force, even a good guy will defend himself or restrain you.

This is not a physical abuser but a physical defender. He responds to your physical threat by restraining you–maybe holding your arms uncomfortably behind your back, or holding you down on the bed–or pushing or shoving you to keep you away from him.

Here’s why it’s important to separate a physical abuser from a physical defender: All you have to do to be safe with a physical defender is not attack him.

He doesn’t have an irrepressible urge to hurt you, but he will defend himself in kind from your physical threat.

In that situation, you have a good guy. Really.

Watched that old show Bewitched the other day. Almost any scene would be considered sexist now.

Anyone mentioned The Newlyweds yet?

R60, [italic]Something About Amelia[/italic]. We had a thread about it not too long ago and I watched it on YouTube only to have it cut off before the end.

And in spite of all that woman today LOVE 50 shades of grey and think it HOT to be strangled during sex. Go figure.

I do hope you recognize the difference between a consensual BDSM relationship and domestic violence, r65 ...

There's an episode of the rebooted "Dragnet" where Ann Marie Guilbert plays Sgt Joe Friday's neighbor and she complains that her husband has been hitting her, and he shrugs her off, later laughing at her and saying he's sure she hits her husband back. I remember watching it in college, and I remember the episode in particular because an art student I was friends with got beat by her boyfriend and he used the "she hits me back" excuse to the cops, who bought it. She told me they'd just watched that "Dragnet" on Nick at Nite and she was sure that's where he got the idea.

Then her asshole parents forced her to drop out of college instead of helping her in any meaningful way, and we lost touch. I think about her a lot.

R35, that jackass on Twitter who pretends to be Richard Nixon defended Nixon when news of him beating Pat came up again about three years ago, a few people tried to talk to him about it and he was really nasty, that's when I realized his shtick wasn't just shtick, that guy really DOES lionize Nixon. Creepy fucker.

I always thought that the title of that Roddy Doyle’s novel The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, is one of the most profound and chilling titles in art. It is a whole story, past, present and future unto itself, you don’t even need to hear the rest of the story, what you can imagine is almost worst that it could possibly be.

[quote]I do hope you recognize the difference between a consensual BDSM relationship and domestic violence

Being physically strangled during sex even if it's consensual is still violence. There's something wrong with woman who want to play out fantasy rape and murder scenes during sex then claim they are not respected like men in the world. Or cant understand why straight men treat them like objects.

Do fuck off, MRA at r70

I have a theory about males that drink to excess. I believe they drink too much, and become abusive alcoholics because they realize they are losing their sex drive as they age and can't deal with it. So they drink to try and feel better, to numb the pain of getting older, and to try and forget their dick is broken. Then they have license to beat their wives, partners, because they are liquored up and not responsible for what happens. They can blame it on the alcohol. If they drink enough they can just forget it ever happened and tell their partner they are crazy to even suggest there is a problem with them. Alcohol can be an easy cover for lots of problems in a relationship. Men have huge issues about losing their virility and booze makes things more tolerable, or so they think.

r67 your post reminded me of something.

When I was about 13 (so late 90s), my parents babysat for a guy my dad knew through work. I think it was more a "friend of a friend" type of thing, because I only met the family once. They had a son and a daughter, and I remember the son cursing and the daughter being somewhat meek as they played together. (They were probably 6 and 8?).

When their parents came back later in the evening, they visited with my parents for a while. I will never forget the wife. She was dressed in a frumpy floral dress and a bit overweight. And the husband treated her like absolute shit. Mocking her, undermining everything she said, etc. He totally came off as a bully and I remember it upset me at the time. She looked utterly demoralized.

Certainly not in the same league as your experience, but I have thought about that woman periodically over the years, and I wonder whatever happened to the family.

Laura Doyle sounds like Dr Laura Schlessenger, the psycho radio bitch.

No thanks.

There was a whole backlash to Camille Paglia in the 1990s when she said something to the effect that Catholics like Italian, Irish and Latinos had a lusty, passionate and violent component that was just part of the culture that made smacking around their woman part of their expected experience or something like that, I wasn’t able to find a reference to it, but it was shocking at the time.

My parents were from that era. From what I can remember, if a woman in the neighborhood was being beaten by her husband, the other woman would know about it. If it was really bad or noticeable, they would tell their husbands they need to go talk to the husband and let him know it's not nice to treat their wife like that. Usually that meant several of the neighborhood "fellas" would have a talk with him. Kind of like a middle-class low key Mafia adjacent threat to cut that shit out. That was in the 70's.

My cousin's daughter was murdered by her abusive Ex. They had been together for years. He was a horrible person. He was involved in drugs, mostly pills, and he eventually landed in prison for a couple years. He was into body building and was covered in tattoos. They had two kids. She ended things with him, But she allowed him to visit his two little boys. He had a girlfriend he was living with. He claimed he wanted to come over to pick up some things he had stored in the garage. While his girlfriend waited in the car she could hear them, the neighbors could hear them screaming and fighting. Then he comes outside, blood all over his t-shirt, his arms, even splashed on his face, and orders terrified girlfriend to drive him back to her house. She convinces him she's hungry, and tells him it's cheaper and faster if she goes to pick up a pizza. She gets out of the house and goes to the cops. It was terrible. Fortunately, my cousin's d aughter sent the two little kids to the neighbor's house when she saw he was in a "bad mood."

R75 I was curious and tried looking it up but couldn't find it either, though I did find an interview with her where it sounds like she brings it up in Sexual Personae. She circles around that idea in this interview, which is long and eyeroll-inducing, so I'm sure she said it.

At one time the soaps were given a lot of credit for raising awareness of the subject.

R18, "offer it up" (to God/heaven) was a traditional bit of Catholic advice. It means to accept your burdens and make a holy sacrifice of them. Your sacrifices on Earth please God, improve your character, and help you earn your place in heaven. So the story goes. Basically what R11 said originally, but I wanted to explain more about what a common concept "offering it up" was.

R15, a lot of men came back from WWII with severe untreated PTSD and became alcoholics or had severe mental illness. All this was shoved under the rug and they sometimes took it out on their wives and families. And they were all raised to believe they could do anything they wanted and their wives had no recourse.

My parents grew up in Ireland too - and both of them had twisted, damaging, unhealthy views of sex and marriage and children. I’ve learned to forgive them because that’s what they grew up with - a sick society run by “celibate” priests and nuns that prioritized silence and suffering over love and happiness. Women were blamed for violence including rape happening to them. Getting pregnant was always the woman’s fault. Any discussion of sex was taboo and the priests were the mayor, cops, and “therapists”- the only people to turn to were the ones who knew nothing about sex, relationships or real life.

It wasn't even treated as a crime until the late 70's and even then the cops wouldn't arrest him. The rule was that the wife had to be willing to press charges. Most women were terrified to do that. And they also had economic considerations. A lot of women couldn't support themselves, had no education or skills. So they lived with the abuse to keep a roof over their heads.

It used to be a sort of hip funny thing to say someone was wearing a “wife beater” undershirt. Not now.

Grandma's neighbor, Emil, across the street would go on a bender every Friday night. He'd walk around his yard (corner house) and rant and scream and talk filth. In the summer, we came out on the porch to watch. At some point, his wife would come running out of the house after he beat her, and run across the street to a neighbor's house. Then his 18 yr old son would pull him out of the house and kick his ass literally while he crawled on hands and knees to the garage. They'd lock him in the garage until he sobered up. He was a quiet guy when he was sober, but not too friendly. He was odd.

The Catholic Church fucked up society. Women kids, the distorted relationships and ideas were just toxic. Ireland was a Catholic country.

Elizabeth Taylor bragged that all her husbands beat her, except Michael Wilding (who was rumored to be gay).

She dismissed Debbie Reynolds as "a girl scout" after she criticized her for staying with Mike Todd after being beaten.

Ah the good old days! Not.

I’m actually really grateful for this thread. Reading about what was considered “normal” back in the day has been such a great reminder of how important progressive movements like feminism are. And how the MAGA movement would have us all return to those days of unbending male chauvinism, unchallenged white supremacy, miserably closeted gays etc. All under the protective umbrella of “Christian family values” of course. It was a total crock then. Still is now.

For exactly who were those the “good old days”? Straight, white men like Josh Hawley., that’s who. That’s why people like him are so filled with rage. And seemingly willing to stop at nothing to turn back the clock.Fuck them.

^And fuck “I Love Lucy” too.

Years ago, my father employed a plumber as part of his construction team. The guy was big and muscular. Sometimes he'd show up for work with a black eye, and bruises on his face. Dad never asked questions, but one of his crew told dad that the plumber's wife used to rough him up. She was a very attractive woman, six feet tall, and built like a female wrestler. The guy would never fight back, because apparently he thought it was wrong to raise a hand against a woman. An unusual kind of domestic violence, I guess.

R90 Not that unusual. Female abusers use the fact that society looks down more on aggressive men and sees women as almost childlike and innocent (especially white women) to get away with being assholes. Times are changing though and people are starting to call Karens out in their bullshit.

The vast majority of serious battering situations involve a male perpetrator and female victim. The truth is, in most cases, men are physically stronger and much more capable of doing serious damage.

R92 true, but do tell that to all the drunk, usually over 30 women who think they can lay their hands in a man and expect to not get smacked back. I've seen this way too often: women in bars and clubs goading guys into a physical altercation and then playing the victim when they get pushback. Also women need to stop acting like they own gay bars.

Your slip is showing, r93

My great-grandfather used to beat his wife and the kids. My grandfather used to beat my grandmother and my mother when she was a kid. My uncle used to get drunk and kick the shit out of my aunt, even put her in hospital one time. My poor cousin got beaten so violently that he lost his hearing in his left ear. My brother and I experienced domestic violence and sexual abuse at home. Then my brother turned into a violent mess with his girlfriend.

It seems to me like it is a virus that is passed down from one generation to the next. I think that is the reason why I don't have children, the cycle of abuse stops with me.

[R95] Thats awful, where did you grow up? Do you stay in contact with any of your family still?

My great grandfather was a bad alcoholic and would beat my great grandmother and the boys, sparing only my grandmother. When he came home drunk, my uncles would take their mom out into the woods and hide her until he passed out. He was apparently sweet and nice when sober, but was an embarrassment to the family because he was the town Otis and was always passed out on sidewalks downtown. My uncles were the most gentle souls and I adored them. They never drank and were never violent, even though all of them fought in WW 2.

Upper class men were just as brutal. Was it Lord Lucan who beat his wife?

[quote]The Catholic Church fucked up society. Women kids, the distorted relationships and ideas were just toxic. Ireland was a Catholic country.

Ireland went from one of the most backward misogynstic repressive and authoritarian countries and is now hailed as a beacon for progressives. When I was a teenager there was a case where a teenage rape victim wanted to travel to the UK to have an abortion but she was stopped from leaving.

The recent Mother & Baby Review into the treatment of abused women and their babies was horrific, but the truly progressive in Ireland don't refer to the victims as women and girls or mothers, they are simply "people with vaginas".

[quote]one of the most backward misogynistic repressive and authoritarian countries

Hold my sake!

Women have been viewed as men’s property quite literally for thousands of years in patriarchal societies. Marriages were about a transfer of ownership from a father to the new husband. Abuse was just accepted as part of men seeing women as just objects to own and use.

Sad, and I’m glad that is changing now in many countries, although the domestic violence numbers and murders against women by partners are still far too high in “civilized” society. I’m hopeful that this will change as our attitudes and laws change.

Didn't Russia relax its domestic violence laws several years ago, practically making it legal. Some years ago a poster here who had worked in Russia described a workplace discussion with an American co-worker who was having marital difficulties. A Russian coworker helpfully offered that the American should slap her around to resolve their problems. The Americans were aghast that it was brought up as a feasible solution in a "civilized" discussion. The guy was a professional with a university degree.

The "tradwife" subculture mentioned upthread is very much an alt-right thing.

TV movies were a big help in getting people talking. The two big ones from the '70s were [italic]Intimate Strangers,[/italic] with Sally Struthers and Dennis Weaver, and [italic]Battered,[/italic] with a cast of couples ranging from Karen Grassle and Mike Farrell to (the most heartbreaking of the bunch) Joan Blondell and Howard Duff.

Mother Teresa and Mother Angelica both used to peddle that "suffering is beautiful" bullshit. Uh, not when you're the one who's suffering, ya old dead whores.

Ireland is a shining example of how fast progress can be made - stunning turnaround in les than 20 years from a theocracy to a modern, progressive state.

Spain was the same after Franco's death.

Can we stop pretending this is a Catholic issue?

Agree r108. It’s most definitely a male issue

Yes. ^ No one denies that men can be and are abused, but people who automatically bring up "women do it, too!" in discussions of this nature should think about why they feel the need to distract from the larger global phenomenon, active since time immemorial, of men beating and killing "their" women and children. There's a place for the discussion of male victims, but this thread is about the perception of wife-beating before the Women's Movement.

Agreed r110.

R35, noticed the term "alleged". Pat Nixon reported it to medical staff. Use of that term is part of the problem, aside from any notions of liability.

Did Pat mention that Dick was a closeted homosexual as well?

It was left up to the discretion of the individual male.

Generally speaking, a physical fight between a man and a woman of equal size and physical condition can probably be considered a fair fight, but on average females are smaller than males and less likely to have the same level of physical strength. Also the time in a relationship in which a man is most likely to start beating a female partner is when she's pregnant, which is definitely not good either for the woman's health or the baby.

"Prohibition was an early women's rights movement because women blamed liquor on men's violence."

Oh yeah, that goes back to the 19th century. The "Temperance Movement", the large scale women's anti-alcohol movement, was out to stop domestic violence by taking away alcohol. 19th century working men would get hammered on Saturday nights and and forget their misery for a few hours, they'd come home and fight with their wives and the women would be injured, and the Temperance ladies thought that if alcohol was taken out of the equation then the fights and injuries would stop. Silly Temperance ladies!

Of course Temperance and Prohobition worked as well as any shortcut approach to solving social problems ever does, the Temperace pledge may have saved some livers but domestic violence was unaffected.

I sometimes wonder if, in some ways, it's worse for women after the women's movement. Now there is widespread belief that any violence in marriage is unacceptable -- "Leave the very first time he hits you!" -- and most women have more options for independence. But the flipside of this is that women who stay (and we know it usually takes women a long time to leave) also deal with accompanying shame that they should have known better and left much earlier.

"Now there is widespread belief that any violence in marriage is unacceptable..."

Now there is widespread belief that any violence in marriage is ILLEGAL and you could go to prison for years if caught.

Very, very few abusers go to prison "for years" (or prison at all) for domestic violence, r117, unless it's particularly egregious. Most men are let off with a slap on the wrist, a misdemeanor, and a batterers treatment program (the effectiveness of which is debate).

[quote]Ireland is a shining example of how fast progress can be made - stunning turnaround in les than 20 years from a theocracy to a modern, progressive state.

You really think progress has been made for vulnerable women in Ireland?

Ireland's new abortion laws are some of the strictest in Europe and women are still being made to travel to the UK to terminate their pregnancies.

The laws on self ID mean violent men who have a long history of violently attacking women are housed in women's prisons - see the Barbie Kardashian case.

The deference to the church has long gone, the centuries old hatred of women might have been muted by some very loud social media activists, but it's still there.

[quote] Ireland went from one of the most backward misogynstic repressive and authoritarian countries and is now hailed as a beacon for progressives.

I so agree.

This thread reminded me -- appropriately enough -- of an anecdote from Vivian Vance's biography.

Responding to the rumor that Viv's husband had beaten her, the friend replied with something like, "I'm not surprised. She had such an attitude. I would have hit her too."

I remember thinking, "Well, that's kind of callous" ... but I guess it was just how people thought then

It was as normal. My grandfather was slapped my grandmother around. My father also slapped my mom on occasion. My mother thinks this is normal straight male behavior

r122 when were your parents born?

[Quote]My grandfather was slapped my grandmother around.

I'm reminded of the lyrics from Barry Manilow's great Copacabana where confusion about sexual jealousy and violence do not pin easy victors vor victims:

But Rico went a bit to far Tony sailed across the bar And then the punches flew and chairs were smashed in two There was blood and a single gun shot But just who shot who?

40s and 50s @R123 My mother to this day does not think she was a victim of domestic violence. It didn’t happen often but it was still traumatic to hear or see

Around 2004/2005 I had a job where a senior manager was hated by the mostly female workforce. She was rude and a bully, but most importantly not very good at her job.

She came in one Monday and her face was badly bruised and she was a shell of herself. Someone who lived near her said that the police had been called to her house on the Friday night and arrested her husband.

The reaction from the women was "it's awful, but you could understand why someone would react like that"...

This is a more harrowing story of DV that occurred on the fringes of my social circle (I'd only met the players a few times; they frequented a bar I occasionally visited).

Anyway, I can't remember if they were broken up or not, but this couple had dated a long time. They were mid-40s, I'd say. One night, the woman called 911 and said he had assaulted and raped her. I think police got her out, but he barricaded himself inside their house for hours, and SWAT showed up. It made the local news. He finally surrendered the next morning. I have no idea whatever happened to them or the case, as I moved away shortly thereafter, but I really, really hope she didn't take him back. She was an LPN and certainly didn't need an unemployed deadbeat for financial reasons.

Another two examples from ILL: 1. When Lucy buys the Don Loper gown and decides to get a mild sunburn because "Ricky would never hit me in that condition!" 2. On another episode, forget which one but probably one that involves Lucy making a furtive purchase, she picks up Little Ricky and says, "He'd never hit a woman holding a child!"

And I know the culture of outrage didn't really exist then. But in the black eye episode, when Lucy tells the story about how Ricky beat her up, Ethel reacts with excitement and glee ... I have to think that was seen as in poor taste even in the 1950s.

R70 You are an idiot! If you cant comprehend this concept by now then you never will. Can you imagine the feeling of someone you love stroking your back/hair for instance compared to that same act performed by some stranger with dirty hands and a pungent smell around them. Same act with completely different outcomes. Open your mind peanut!

I think r70 is a troll, r129

Don't beat your wife every night.

[quote] Oh yeah, that goes back to the 19th century. The "Temperance Movement", the large scale women's anti-alcohol movement, was out to stop domestic violence by taking away alcohol. 19th century working men would get hammered on Saturday nights and and forget their misery for a few

Not just that...men would drink up their paychecks. There was no reliable birth control. Men could — and did — rape their wives. The wives were always pregnant. They had large numbers of children the family couldn’t afford. Since they were always pregnant, or nursing, or caring for small children, the women couldn’t work outside the home. The family was dependent on the man’s paycheck for food, shelter & clothing. The men would leave work on Friday nights & head straight for the saloon. They often passed out on the street or were placed in jail (the drunk tank) until they woke up. The women would send the older children out looking for the husband. Sometimes ge was gone all weekend and his paycheck was gone, spent on drink & sometimes whores. The family was destitute.

Men would also disappear & never come home. Some got on a train headed west; in seaport cities they sometimes signed on a ship as a worker & would leave the family. There were many stories of men “going out to get a newspaper” or who “Went out for cigarettes” and never came back. They’d gotten drunk & decided not to go back home. Some of them were probably “rolled” (mugged) murdered & thrown in a river or off the end of a dock.

A lot of societal problems were the result of alcohol. Women & children were raped by drunk, emboldened men. Kids were sickly because they didn’t have enough food or the family couldn't afford medicine to treat illness. Orphanages filled with children whose mothers couldn’t afford them or were the product of rape. Women knew that alcohol played a large part in these problems — hunger, neglect, overpopulation, illness, violence, murder — and society actually did improve when restrictions were placed on alcohol and enforced by the law.

My mother grew up in a family of too many children with a drunk father who beat the wife & the sons and never had enough food or clothing. He forced all his children out of school at age 16 and out of the house at age 17. The boys went into the military & the girls got married. There was no question of living at home after the age of 17. But my mother believed her parents were great people except for every once in a while when she would admit the horror of what happened to them.

They say married men live longer. They're not allowed to die without the wife's permission.

r132 I had a friend many years who grew up in Texas in the 1950s. His father may have been an alcoholic (can't remember) but he was certainly abusive. One night he started beating my friend and his wife jumped in to intervene and he beat her too. Another time, when he was younger, my friend said he and his sister hugged each other as their mother was being beaten. Sometimes, if it got bad, the neighbors would intervene.

Interestingly, he said that as an adult, he had tried to discuss these incidents with his sister. She claimed to have no recollection of them.

My friend was a sad case. Closeted for many years, struggled with addiction all his life, lost a great programming job, ended up homeless and moving around from sleazy motel to sleazy motel. I'd lost touch with him and looked him up a couple of years ago. He had died in his early 60s.

That shit really does affect you for life.

I'm a big fan of Cold Case Files (and similar shows) and recently saw a case that kind of horrified me.

I might be getting SOME details wrong, but the general gist is here. In the 1950s/1960s, a woman in the rural south was married at 15 and had a few children. Her husband was horrifically abusive and it went on for several years. They interviewed her sister, who knew the extent of the abuse. They also interviewed her son. One night -- I think he was 12 or 13 -- the wife sustained a particularly brutal beating. The son went looking for his mother and found her hiding beneath a neighbor's porch. He said something like, "Her face was beaten so bad she was almost unrecognizable, and she was in so much pain, it scared me." She told him, "Do NOT tell him where I am. Go home. I will come back for you in the morning, I promise."

The next morning, she was gone. Shortly thereafter, her body was found at the bottom of a well. And her death was deemed "accidental" (I don't think police ever interviewed the son) and she was buried.

Well, thirty years later, they exhumed the body, and it was clear she had been beaten to death.

I think (?) the husband was already dead by then.

The whole case haunted me. What a horrific life.

R133 do you think that is why men in their late 70s to 80s have the highest rate of suicide? Cos their wives have died.. your joke was lame

I was recently looking through old issues of Ladies' Home Journal (MARY!!!) and came across a "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column from the mid-1950s. And, according to the column, a marriage in which the wife shows up to couples counseling with a bruised face can still be saved if the husband promises to never, ever do it again, and if the wife works harder to be a better partner.

^^ forgot to sign OP