Societies abandoned violent chastisement in intimate relationships by banning all degree, not severe cases

Evidence

We once permitted husbands to use “reasonable” physical force to correct their wives. We called it “moderate chastisement.” The common law authorized it. We abandoned that permission — not because we discovered that marital violence is always severe, but because we concluded that no degree of interpersonal violence is an acceptable tool of governance within an intimate relationship. The same principle has been applied to prisons, to schools in most countries, to workplaces, to every institutional setting in which one person holds power over another. The only remaining exception is the home. — , The Rod and the Child, 6687

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the historical shift in domestic violence law and the social learning literature on power asymmetries.