Wives should be chastised: Wife Spanking P/1

                                                      

In this post I will begin to share from an article by Larry Solomon “Does the Bible allow a husband to spank his wife?” This article can be found on his website Biblical Gender Roles

I will, first of all, give an historical background to this subject of wife spanking as given by Larry Solomon.

Larry Solomon wrote: “Most Christians, and for that matter most Americans,  are woefully ignorant of any history beyond the last 20 years. It might surprise many Americans to know that for a man to physically discipline his wife was historically considered by societies and courts to be “within the matrimonial privileges” up until the mid-19th century with the rise of Feminism. Below is a late 18th century account of an Irish judge ruling on the issue of a man beating his wife with a “switch”: "In the London Quarterly Review of Legal Cases vol 136, published in 1874 we read of a case that is referenced from a century earlier which established the right of husbands to spank their wives with switches: “A similar doctrine has been laid down by Dr. Marmaduke Coghill, judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland, who in a suit by a wife for divorce on the ground that her husband had given her a sound beating, delivered a well-considered opinion that, with such a switch as the one held in his hand, moderate chastisement was within the matrimonial privileges of the husband.”

Larry Solomon: "In the famous Mississippi case Calvin Bradley v. State in 1834, the court ruled: “By the ancient common law, the husband possessed the power of chastising his wife... Let the husband be permitted to exercise the right of moderate chastisement.”

Larry Solomon: "Then in 1850, Tennessee became the first state to outlaw wife beating in the United States. Other states would soon follow in passing laws outlawing wife beating."

Larry Somolon: "But still some courts disagreed with the new trend of outlawing a husband’s right to “chastise” his wife. In  1864 the North Carolina Supreme Court gave the following decision in State vs Jesse Black: “A husband is responsible for the acts of his wife, and he is required to govern his household, and for that purpose the law permits him to use towards his wife such a degree of force as is necessary to control an unruly temper and make behave herself; and unless some permanent injury be inflicted, or there be an excess of violence, or such a degree of cruelty as shows that it is inflicted to gratify his own bad passions, the law will not invade the domestic forum or go behind the curtain.”

Larry Solomon: "The practice of wife spanking continued to be common practice in America well into the 1950s. It was during the 1960s and 1970s with the second wave of feminism that the “Domestic Violence” movement attempted to eradicate wife spanking completely from American Society. The question is: Were they right to do so?"

My Comment

Throughout the centuries it seems that wife beating/wife spanking was part of the culture both in Europe and America. At the same time many of these men would have been church goers. It is very clear that they did not understand the teachings of the Bible on the role of men and women as equal partners (Genesis 1:26-28; Genesis 2:18) who were called to love and serve each other (Galatians 5:13) as Christ loves and serves His Body, the Church (Ephesians 5:2). 

Read Part Two HERE