went, therefore, to the shelf where the histories stand and took down one of the latest, Professor Trevelyan’s History of England. Once more I looked up Women, found “position of” and turned to the pages indicated. “Wife-beating,” I read, “was a recognised right of man, and was practised without shame by high as well as low…. Similarly,” the historian goes on, “the daughter who refused to marry the gentleman of her parents’ choice was liable to be locked up, beaten and flung about the room, without any shock being inflicted on public opinion.
