Main >> Hobbies & Interests >> My First Home Page

 
The History of Domestic Violence
THE HISTORY OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:
A Comprehensive Chronology of Women and Criminal Justice

      Domestic violence is as old as recorded history. It has been reported in virtually every society in every country since the dawn of time. Throughout the course of history domestic violence has been both legal and socially acceptable until very recently.
       
      The following chronicle of important events, laws, and legislation is to provide a historical context within which domestic violence can be understood, to provide an understanding of the impact of particular events on the issue, and to gain an understanding of the cause and effect between events and responses to domestic violence. The history of Western civilization provides the foundation upon which our institutions are built. As different cultural groups came into contact with each other various beliefs and practices were adopted and integrated into mainstream society. In this fashion, people in successive epochs of time borrowed from ancestors and other cultures to carve out their own society. Some beliefs of the anciets are still reflected in modern society. The Romans borrowed from the Greeks. The English borrowed from the Romans. American laws are based on the common law of England.

      Two major elements combined to seal the status of women for more than 6000 years. Those elements, male dominance and the concept of women as property of men, and the social ideal of a woman's proper role combined in such a way as to make the use of force on women by men not only socially acceptable, but mandated by law. Physical force has always been used to keep subordinate groups in their place by the more dominant forces in society. Most societies have been male dominated. Historically, women have been oppressed and beaten with the approval of societies dominated by men. One ancient law decreed that a woman who was verbally abusive to her husband was to have her name engraved on a brick, which would then be used to knock out her teeth. (1)


      Evidence from the earliest known civilizations in the Paleolithic Era first identified the most basic role of women as food gatheres. While men went into the field to hunt, women gathered vegetation around the base camp provided a dependable source of food in the absence of game. Women also bore the burden of raising and educating children.

      The status of the family unit was crucial for survival during these early days. The clan provided protection, socialization, and a means of survival. Society was composed of very closely knit villages comprised of family clans. Even in these early times domestic violence was a "family matter."

       As time progressed women were eventually awarded more rights. Often times though these rights were awarded by class and status. The women most in need of relief from male abuse were routinely denied legal recourse for the trauma they suffered. Noble women and women of stature or social standing usually had more rights than lower class or working women. Slave women had no rights in most countries until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course in many countries even today in the 21st century women are second class citizens subject to the unrelenting brutality of their male counterparts.

        The general idea of male priviledge prevailed for hundreds of years. A few enlightened souls began to recognize the brutality of wife beating very early on, though it took centuries before any real efforts were made to curtail the problem. As early as 1405, French writer Christine de Pizan complained of the harsh beatings and injuries suffered by women at the hands of their husbands, who had no cause or reason to inflict such treatment.
  
          Literature wasn't the only arena of pop culture influenced by the plague of domestic violence. The widespread acceptance of wife beating has often been reflected in pop culture slang terminology. We have all heard the expression "rule of thumb." It is commonly used in American conversation to describe a general guideline, a rule for everyday, routine use. Yet this innocuous expression has chilling origins in a past that helps explain why domestic violence is still with us.

         "Rule of thumb" referes to an English common law, which was included in Blackstone's codification of the law published in the 18th century. Before the rule of thumb, a husband could chastise his wife with "any reasonable instrument." The rule of thumb actually represented some progress toward limiting the amount of force a man could use. It allowed a husband to beat his wife with any stick as long as the stick was no thicker than his own thumb.

          The following links will take you to domestic violence laws and concepts, as well as provide commentary on social attitudes  throughout different epochs of time.










THIS SITE CREATED BY JESSICA STRAWSER

 

page created with Easy Designer