"Deserving" Wives and "Drunken" Husbands: Wife Beating, Marital Conduct, and the Law in Ontario, 1850-1910

Abstract

By the 1870s wife beating was no longer only whispered about among family members and neighbours, but had gradually started to become a matter for public discussion. Changing attitudes towards wife abuse had an impact on judicial reform. Legal records and newspapers from the period between 1870 and 1910 provide evidence that helps us to assess the influence of the reform movement, and especially the role of temperance, on social and legal responses to violence by husbands against their wives. Lobbying by temperance advocates, combined with political pressure from feminists, reformers, abused women, and the press, contributed to legislation in 1909 that, for the first time, recognized wife abuse as a crime separate from common assault. As the practice of the courts shows, however, legal sanctions remained largely ineffective despite the rhetoric of the day.