The Marriage Book (69 page)

But that’s just not a part of the way I think because I wasn’t brought up in this culture. And I think I’m too old now. I was engaged once in my 30s for a while, and like most women I just wanted to see if he cared enough to want to marry me. And then I told my friend that I don’t just have cold feet, my feet are in a bucket of cement.

V

VIOLENCE

BRITISH CHURCH COURT RECORD, 1300

The fourteenth century in England was not exactly a liberated time for wives; grave injury or grave risk usually had to be proven for divorces to be granted. Nonetheless, according to this fragment (originally written in Latin) from a church court in Droitwich, there were some consequences for violent behavior.

Thomas Louchard ill treated his wife with a rod. The man appears, confesses, and is whipped in the usual manner once through the market.

SAMUEL ROWLANDS

“A WHOLE CREW OF KIND GOSSIPS, ALL MET TO BE MERRY,” 1609

Not much appears to be known about the British author Samuel Rowlands (circa 1565–circa 1630) except that he wrote a considerable number of pamphlets and what were called “jest books.” In the one from which this passage is taken, Rowlands purports to record the chatter of six women in a tavern, all unloading complaints about their husbands. The faults range from cheapness to drunkenness to sexual incompetence and, in the case of the “second Gossip,” below, constant disagreement. The upshot: Then as now, marital violence is not always a male act.

The original meaning of
faggot
is “a bundle of sticks.”

At first (indeed) he put me in a feare,

When as I heard him but begin to sweare:

Then spake I faire, and to him was right kinde, Thinking to put him in a better minde.

I tride him thus a while, but t’was a wonder How he would dominiere, and keepe me under.

Nay then (quoth I) Ile try my Mothers tricke, And valiantly tooke up a Faggot-sticke.

(For he had given me a blow or twaine)

But as he likes it, let him strike againe, The blood ran downe about his eares apace, I brake his head, and all bescratch’t his face: Then got him downe, and with my very fist I did bepommell him untill he pist.

So from that houre unto this present day, He never durst begin another fray:

But is content to let all fighting cease, A Faggot-sticke hath bound him to the peace.

BRITISH PROVERB, 1678

Leaving aside the women and the animals, walnut trees were beaten because they were believed to flourish best when their nuts were shaken down, rather than gathered from the ground.

Another version: “A woman, an ass, and a walnut tree . . .”

A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree,

The more they’re beaten the better still they be!

JOHN DUNTON

THE POST-ANGEL
, 1701

A bookseller and author with an eccentric and broad range of interests, John Dunton (1659–1733) formed the Athenian Society in London as a “society of experts” and in 1691 started publishing the twice-weekly
Athenian Mercury
, using his experts to produce what was essentially the first advice column. A women’s version soon followed, and then, in 1701, a short-lived British periodical,
The Post-Angel: or, Universal Entertainment
, which featured legal cases, obituaries, book news, and a section called “A New Athenian Mercury: Resolving the most Nice and Curious Questions propos’d by the Ingenious of either Sex.” This was one of those questions.

Quest. 27. Whether tis lawful for a Man to beat his Wife.

Answ. The affirmative would be very disobliging to that Sex, without adding any more to it, therefore I ought to be as cautious and tender as may be asserting such an ill natur’d Position. I allow a Wife to be naturaliz’d into, and part of her Husband, and yet Nature sometimes wars against part of itself, in ejecting by Sweat, Urine, &c. what otherwise would be destructive to its very Frame; nay, sometimes there is occasion of greater Violences to Nature; so there are but few Husbands that know how to correct a Wife. To do it in a Passion, and pretend Justice, is ridiculous; because the Passion incapacitates the Judgment from its Office; and to do it when one is pleas’d, is a harder Task; so that I conclude, as the Legality is questionable, so the Time and Measure are generally too critical for a
Calculation;
when a Wife goes astray, ’tis safe to use a sympathetick Remedy, as the rebuke of a Kiss: The Antipathetick may prove worse than the Disease.

JAMES GILLRAY

JUDGE THUMB
, 1782

Francis Buller is the central figure in this caricature by British printmaker James Gillray (circa 1756–1815). Buller earned the nickname “Judge Thumb” for his supposed court ruling (records are unclear) that a man had the legal right to beat his wife, as long as the stick he used was no wider than a man’s thumb. This, by the way, is one of many suggested origins of the phrase “rule of thumb.”

In the cartoon, the judge is saying: “Who wants a cure for a nasty Wife? Here’s your nice Family Amusement for Winter Evenings! Who buys here?” The wife is saying: “Help! Murder, for God sake, Murder!” The husband is saying: “Murder, hey? It’s Law, you Bitch: it’s not bigger than my Thumb!”

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
, 1947

Winner of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Drama,
A Streetcar Named Desire
made a luminary of author Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) and a star of Marlon Brando. Eventually a movie as well, the play tells the story of Blanche DuBois, an aging southern belle, who—out of money, luck, and almost hope—comes to New Orleans to stay with her sister and brother-in-law, Stella and Stanley Kowalski. The conflict between the feral Stanley and the self-deluded Blanche is at the heart of the play, and Stella is torn between her love for her husband and the desire to protect her sister from his violent nature. The conflict is clear when Stella and Blanche arrive home to find a poker game in full swing.

Mitch, one of Stanley’s friends, courts Blanche until Stanley tells him about her past. Eunice is the Kowalskis’ upstairs neighbor. “The blue piano” is Williams’s term for the jazz music that wafts through New Orleans—and through the play. What separates the two excerpts below is a scene of the poker players forcing Stanley into a shower to try to sober him up, then hastily leaving.

RUTH GORDON AND GARSON KANIN

ADAM’S RIB
, 1949

Ruth Gordon (1896–1985) and Garson Kanin (1912–1999) wrote the movie
Adam’s Rib
for Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, who play married lawyers going head-to-head in a courtroom trial. As Amanda Bonner, Hepburn makes the case that the female defendant, having shot at her husband and his lover, is being subjected to a double standard that makes a husband more entitled to violence than a wife. The conflict between defense and prosecution gets personal for the Bonners when, back at home, Adam gives Amanda a massage—and a questionable slap on the backside.