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X-Posted to CHAUCER, MEDTEXT-L, REED-L The Wakefield Noah has Noe tell Gill his wife “betyn shall thou be with this staf to thou stink.” In his biography of Chaucer, John Gardner (I know, I know) refers to a law in the 14th century, at least, that a husband could beat a wife but had to stop if she broke wind, a sign that she was on the verge of death. Can anyone confirm whether such a law actually existed and, if so, whether it was current in the 15th century when Noah was written? Alan B.