Domestic violence
History

Political agitation and the first-wave feminist movement, during the 19th century, led to changes in both popular opinion and legislation regarding domestic violence within the UK, the US, and other countries. In 1850, Tennessee became the first state in the US to explicitly outlaw wife beating. Other states soon followed. In 1871, the tide of legal opinion began to turn against the idea of a right to wife-beating, as courts in Massachusetts and Alabama reversed the precedent set in Bradley. In 1878, the UK Matrimonial Causes Act made it possible for women in the UK to seek legal separation from an abusive husband. By the end of the 1870s, most courts in the US had rejected a claimed right of husbands to physically discipline their wives. In the early 20th century, paternalistic judges regularly protected perpetrators of domestic violence in order to reinforce gender norms within the family. In divorce and criminal domestic violence cases, judges would levy harsh punishments against male perpetrators, but when the gender roles were reversed they would often give little to no punishment to female perpetrators. By the early 20th century, it was common for police to intervene in cases of domestic violence in the US, but arrests remained rare.
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