Women In England Then

Just yesterday I had occasion to deal with the subject of Judaism's relationship to women.

And what do you know, today, skimming through the London Times book section, I came upon a review that contained this:

The level of cruelty towards women in traditional British society beggars belief. Legally, a married woman had no personal identity and her husband could do what he liked with her body, her freedom, her money or her children. As late as 1782 a man still had the legal right to beat his wife as long as the stick was no thicker than his thumb — hence, the “rule of thumb”. Murdering a wife was merely a felony, while female infidelity merited a death sentence since it could affect a child’s legitimacy. A woman who killed her husband was guilty of high treason, a crime routinely punished with “death by burning” until 1790.

Judaism had a much better record than Merrie Ole England then.