None of this is surprising, given that we didn’t recognize domestic violence as wrong for most of human history. Jewish, Islamic, Christian, and Catholic religions all traditionally believed it was within a husband’s purview to discipline his wife in more or less the same manner as he might discipline and control any other of his properties, including servants, slaves, and animals; of course, the holy texts—Koran, Bible, and Talmud—from which such beliefs stem were simply interpretations by (of course) men of the time.17 Some of these interpretations even gave instruction on the manner of wife
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