Each week, Daily Maverick brings you some of the world's harder-to-believe stories. This week: when your wife needs to be streamlined with the back of your hand.
In ... an ancient Welsh publication called Laws of Women: "A man may beat a woman with a stick, or rod as thick as his middle finger and as long as his forearm. Elsewhere in Welsh laws, there are references to sticks the thickness of a thumb and their appropriateness in the chastisement of the unruly wife. Certain conditions applied. Such violence was justified only if a woman had insulted a man's beard, wished dirt on his teeth, been unfaithful or given away property that was not hers to give. He could hit her three times, anywhere on the body, but not on the head."
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