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For anyone else interested in pursuing this issue, here is some bibliography from the inexhaustible font of all things medieval, Jim Marchand. And thanks for all the responses so far (Alan Gaylord has forgiven me, I think, for bringing this up on Valentine's Day--sort of like Jankyn bringing his Book of Wikked Wives into the marriage chamber on the wedding night). Alan B. -----Original Message----- From: Jim Marchand <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 3:44 PM Subject: Wife Beating >There is an ample literature on the subject of wife beating, though most of >it is emotionally colored. Cf. Pamela F. Howard, _Wife beating. A selected, >annotated bibliography (San Diego, CA: Current Bibliographies). For more >recent studies, see Dorothy Ayers Counts and Judith K. Brown, eds., _To have >and to hit: cultural perspectives on wife beating_, 2d ed. (Urbana, IL: >University of Illinois Press, 1999). The most bizarre rules hold in law, as >you might imagine; ditto for dipping of shrewish wives and burning witches. >Also great mottos and the like: sub virga viri; a wife may be beaten only >once a week, and then only with a rod no bigger around that the husband's >thumb. Mankind's folly knows no limits.