BBC Radio Shetland

Disposable Brides

Disposable Brides: Episode 3

Factual: Families & Relationships

Factual: History

Episode 3

BBC Radio Scotland - Disposable Brides, Episode 3

Bad marriages 19th century-style: how the press and courts condoned wife-beating.

Bad marriages 19th century-style with Susan Morrison, concluding with wife-beating: how the women were thought of as 'drunken shrews' who deserved it, and how men got away with it.

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In the 19th century it was accepted that men were allowed to use violence to control their wives and that it was part of working class behaviour. The courts and the press gave the impression that wife-beating was not a serious crime and gave out light sentences. The press gave more column inches to beating your horse than it did your wife and believed that women were to blame 'Pity the poor husbands, unless wives hold their tongues and tempers and their conduct they will continue to be beaten'. In the 20th century things started to change with the rise of feminism and women's refuges. But how far have we really come?

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