Rule of Thumb myth


Why does this film perpetuate the 'rule of thumb' myth, that it is not illegal for a husband to beat his wife if the rod is no thicker than a thumb?!?
Not only is it historical nonsense and a pernicious feministic myth it is also misandry at its worst.

"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

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The rule of thumb wasn't a myth. In 1782 a judge's verdict stated that if there was good cause, a husband could legally beat his wife so long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb. Foreman cited Lawrence Stone's Road to Divorce (Oxford) p. 201

Not really a good example of misandry, blaircam. Just saying.

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Actually the 'rule of thumb' applied to wife-beating is/was a myth. There is no legal authority for it AT ALL. The right to physically correct one's wife is certainly not found in Blackstone's Commentaries, in fact, Blackstone specifically says that by 1765 it is not permitted (husbands may only exercise reasonable restraint to liberty in the case of gross misbehaviour) and, while he indicates it was formerly permitted for husbands to physically correct wives, there is no mention of what size rod one could use (see http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/blackstone/bla-115.htm).
The only 'authority' to be found for it is in passing references to 'ancient practice' which is then disregarded.
Indeed wife-beating has specifically been illegal in the English speaking world for over three hundred years.
There is plenty of misogyny (by today's standards) in history but in the time of the movie (about two decades after Blackstone) there was no such law and it is questionable if there ever was.
It is certainly not the source of the expression.

"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

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Why are you ignoring two sources that say a judge in the 1780s did indeed rule that a husband had the right to beat his wife? Nowhere was it said that all or most men back then would beat their wives. Just that there were example of men getting away with physically disciplining their wives. There are other women in the book who are trapped in abusive marriages.

Foreman was clearly unsympathetic to Bess's situation for the most part, but even she agreed that Mr. Foster (Bess's husband) treated his wife terribly and this is one of the examples she cited when she was trying to get readers to understand how desperate her situation was. While it doesn't make Bess any less of a conniving, scheming woman who stole her best friend's husband, Foreman made it clear that Bess was leaving a terrible marriage.

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Why are you ignoring a primary, contemporary and authoritative source that clearly says the laws of England 20 years before the events in the movie did not permit wife-beating in preference to ONE modern, secondary source that says what one judge might have ruled and a source which quotes that secondary source?
Blackstone's Commentaries are widely accepted as definitive of the English common law at the time and yet you seem to prefer to believe modern secondary sources...
Why? Is it really that hard to give up your myth?
This is not about whether husbands might have treated wives badly or even if they got away with it. I have no doubt they did. It is about what the laws of England permitted at the time. Blackstone clearly says they did not permit wife beating - with a thumb-sized stick or otherwise. His restatement of the law is considered highly accurate and reliable, being referenced repeatedly by superior courts even today, as the law of England at the time.
Even if a court did find it permissable, it is still not determinative of what the law was at the time. Judges frequently make mistakes, that is what courts of appeal are for.

"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

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1. English judges apparently took a more permissive attitude toward wife beating prior to 1660, but this attitude had been rejected by the time of Blackstone's commentaries, upon which our modern common law relies.

2. Wife beating has never been legal in the U.S.

3. A couple of 19th-century U.S. trial opinions referred to an "ancient law" permitting a husband to beat his wife with a stick not exceeding a thumb's width but rejected said law.

4. While this alleged rule involved a thumb, it wasn't the origin of "rule of thumb."


From: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2550/does-rule-of-thumb-refer -to-an-old-law-permitting-wife-beating


It is often claimed incorrectly that the term's etymological origin lies in a law that limited the maximum thickness of a stick with which it was permissible for a man to beat his wife. British common law before the reign of Charles II permitted a man to give his wife "moderate correction", but no "rule of thumb" (whether called by this name or not) has ever been the law in England. Such "moderate correction" specifically excluded beatings, allowing the husband only to confine a wife to the household.

Nonetheless, belief in the existence of a "rule of thumb" law to excuse spousal abuse can be traced as far back as 1782, the year that James Gillray published his satirical cartoon Judge Thumb. The cartoon lambastes Sir Francis Buller, a British judge, for allegedly ruling that a man may legally beat his wife, provided that he used a stick no thicker than his thumb, although it is questionable whether Buller ever made such a pronouncement (poor record-keeping for trial transcripts in that era makes it difficult to determine whether such a ruling may have existed).[citation needed] The Body of Liberties adopted in 1641 by the Massachusetts Bay colonists states, “Every married woman shall be free from bodily correction or stripes by her husband, unless it be in his own defense from her assault.” In the United States, legal decisions in Mississippi (1824) and North Carolina (1868 and 1874) make reference to—and reject—an unnamed "old doctrine" or "ancient law" by which a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb. For example, the 1874 case State v. Oliver (North Carolina Reports, Vol. 70, Sec. 60, p. 44) states: "We assume that the old doctrine that a husband had the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no larger than his thumb, is not the law in North Carolina." In 1976, feminist Del Martin used the phrase "rule of thumb" as a metaphorical reference to describe such a doctrine. She was misinterpreted by many as claiming the doctrine as a direct origin of the phrase and the connection gained currency in 1982, when the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report on wife abuse, titled "Under the Rule of Thumb."
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb#Thumb_used_for_regulation





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You may say wife beating has never been legal in the USA, but I challenge you to read Donna Ferrato's Living With the Enemy and come back and type that again. Through the 1980's and in courts TODAY thre remains tacit judicial and systemic support of domestic violence. Walking right through that restraing order is not just a song lyric.

Put a bird on it.

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In my Law School Sex Discrimination class we were taught that there was never an "official" Rule of Thumb Law.
However, as some posters have noted, that doesn't mean some biased judges haven't used this mythical "Rule" to justify wife-beating.

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And this is the point.
I think I said above that I have no doubt that wife beating occurred at the time of the film and today and there may even have been some incorrect judicial approval of such behaviour.
I won't even argue that domestic violence is always handled well by courts today - I am sure it is not, whether the perpetrator be wife or husband.
But the point of the thread was to decry the part of the film in which it is stated - entirely incorrectly - that the law of England at the time of The Duchess permitted a husband to beat his wife with a stick no wider than his thumb. It is simply untrue and should not be treated as historical fact.

"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

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If men told women that there was a rule of thumb law they would have believed them at the time. I'm sure laws and legal documents were not easily obtained by women at the time.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

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[deleted]

OP said:
"Why does this film perpetuate the 'rule of thumb' myth, that it is not illegal for a husband to beat his wife if the rod is no thicker than a thumb?!?

I guess it's because it's uglier to say that beating one's wife was not considered illegal at all. Cops used to respond to domestic violence calls by cornering a wife and saying 'come on, you must have done something to set him off'. Oh, and also, it wasn't illegal to rape one's wife, either.

Not only is it historical nonsense and a pernicious feministic myth it is also misandry at its worst."

How feministically pernicious was the rape scene and the zero consequences for the Duke? Or the Duke's mistress being denied custody of her children? These things tend to fly right over the heads of people who have the rule of thumb stick stuck firmly up their behinds.

Worried about misandry? Call a cop.


**Have an A1 day**

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When is this even mentioned in the movie?

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it is also misandry at its worst.

...how?

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This isn't the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15YgdrhrCM8

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