According to a 1984 article by Susan Edwards, “The expression “rule of thumb” derives from the judicial ruling that a husband was entitled to use only a stick no thicker than his thumb to control an overly independent wife”. Wow.
This finding disturbed me, but didn’t prepare me for the facts I was about to encounter concerning marital violence. One of my assignments for a class was to read an article…I chose the intriguingly named “Till Death Us Do Part” by Margo Wilson and Martin Daly. As I began to read it, I found myself getting more and more unsettled. Women in the United States face a statistically greater risk of being killed by their husbands than women in Europe. The risk is up to five times greater. Women living in America’s most violent cities face an extra five-fold increase (Wilson & Daly).
What is the common factor in the majority of cases involving wife slaughter? The answer is jealousy, and it exists in all societies. “Men exhibit a tendency to think of women as sexual and reproductive “property” that they can own and exchange” (Wilson & Daly). This male sexual proprietariness is what leads to morbid jealousy. I find myself asking, why don’t the majority of women behave this way? Why men? Gender is a funny little thing, isn’t it?
The article goes on to describe laws that have protected men who murder their wives by stating that any reasonable man who catches a wife in the act of adultery, has the right to kill the wife and the other man…interesting. I wonder what a reasonable woman can be expected to do?
-LG
Tags: gender, marital violence, thoughts
