r/patriarchylightly

It's normal for your husband to physically correct you. It's so normalized that throughout almost all of human history a man had the right to hit his wife to correct her. You can look it up in all the great civilizations. It existed before Rome and Christianity and continued until the late 50s and early 60s.

That's why battered women almost always defend their husband when a neighbor calls the police. Deep down he's giving them something they need and that no one else gives them: discipline and the guidance of a man to submit to.

There is real abuse, the kind that leaves permanent damage or causes serious harm to bodily integrity. That has always been condemned by human civilizations. Some justified excesses for infidelity, but over time they realized that was immoral and banned it. But there's nothing wrong with a man exercising his authority.

In fact it has been proven that moderate physical punishment on women and children produces more affection and attachment toward the father or spouse who applies the discipline than toward those who don't apply it. It even works with animals, as long as it's moderate and not harmful.

You should honor your ancestors by truly serving a man and accepting his right to discipline you. That's what real women did before feminism.

After my previous posts I want to show something many people prefer to ignore. I am not inventing anything. These are real letters from women who lived before feminism and liberalism deformed the words and destroyed the meaning of male authority. The first is from the 19th century. The others are from the 1930s and 1950s, written to Dorothy Dix, one of the most famous and influential marriage advice columnists of her time. You can copy them and ask any AI if you do not believe me. I am only recovering what was already known and accepted.

These women did not speak of “abuse.” They spoke of correction, of discipline, of authority. They understood that real love was measured by the ability to endure punishment and keep serving. They understood that a weak man did not deserve to be loved. They understood that respect was not a nice feeling but concrete obedience under the real threat of physical consequences.

First letter (19th century):

“You speak of corrections; I am convinced that few women have had to undergo more corrections than have I, and I do not doubt for one moment that there are many slaves who have felt and undergone less often than I the punishment of the whip.
I have no need to add for the rest, that it is by bodily corrections and by these only that a woman can attain to that degree of submission and humility which will render her as humble and submissive as a slave, and, even then, this woman must be of a lively imagination and impassioned nature.
In this case the woman accepts the yoke with joy and knows how to gladly stoop to it, being accustomed to humble herself before the man she loves, she will each day humble herself more and more, and that which to certain women would be an insupportable existence, becomes to her on the contrary a life of enjoyment, for both spirit and nerves; she gives herself up entirely, she has made the sacrifice of herself, she really belongs body and soul to her master, husband or lover.
I know my character and temperament, I could not love a feeble man, a man who did not know how to rule over me, to subjugate me entirely.
As I had the honour to inform you, my husband often flogged me, but nearly always with a hunting-whip, or a martinet, or else with a riding-whip or even with a cord. I need not tell you that in order to receive these bodily corrections I used to strip myself stark naked, as he said. These punishments he inflicted on every part of my body without exception, and I sometimes bore the traces for more than a fortnight.
I habitually went on my knees, or prostrated my face to the floor.
But before commencing the castigation, he used, to employ his own expression, to make up my face, that is to say, he began by smacking it vigorously, and pulling and pinching my ears till the blood came.
During the whole time of the correction, I used to take pride in not uttering a single cry, or complaint, and this exasperated him.
I was sometimes covered with blood, and I was all in a fever, but a few caresses would make all well again.”

Letter to Dorothy Dix (1950s):

Dear Miss Dix:
One night the worm turned. My husband followed me to a whoopee party and after severely beating the man I was with brought me home. When we got in he sat down in the first chair he spied and turned me over his knee and paddled me soundly.
It was a very painful and embarrassing experience for me. But angry as I was I could see that he was doing right and from that time I have been a real wife and mother.
That paddling saved us from divorce and from wrecking my life. As I really loved him and the children.
If other men who really loved their wives and know their wives love them even if they are silly jazz babies would try this recipe on saving a home there would be fewer divorces and broken hearts.
I loathe a wife beater. But I think any husband has a right to spank a philandering wife before she goes too far. It cured me and I am glad it happened to me.
Am I right or wrong in my belief?
Mrs. J. My L. R.

Another letter to Dorothy Dix:

DEAR MISS DIX:
I am 25 years old, and for the first time in my life I have been spanked!
I am engaged to a terrific, big handsome man of 30, and I adore him.
Yesterday I had him over for dinner — mother and I live alone — and a terrible scene took place.
I know I’ve been spoiled and have a temper as flaming as my red hair.
Mother asked me to help with dinner and I wouldn’t. We started to argue and before I knew it I had taken a pile of plates and smashed them on the floor.
Mark was simply furious, as he thinks the world of my Mom, and demanded that I apologize.
When I refused, he literally carried me across the room, turned me over his knee and applied a hairbrush in my first spanking.
As a result, I apologized to my mother and cleaned up the mess I had made.
Now my problem. Do you think I should marry a man who will treat me like that?
— LOUISE

Dorothy Dix’s reply:

ANSWER:
Your fiancé is apparently well acquainted with Mr. Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew,” and gauges his wooing accordingly.
Mother Should Have Done It
His somewhat unconventional chastisement should, of course, have been instituted by your mother some 20 years ago.

Fragment from another letter (1930 – Elmira Star-Gazette):

DIX—I wonder where you get the idea that husbands do [not spank] wives in this day and age?
I have had more spankings and I deserve them every one.
I [am] extravagant, [spoiling], bad-tempered and willful.
[My] husband supports me in luxury, is loving and kind, and all that…

Read carefully. These women did not ask for “emotional equality.” They did not speak of constant consent. They did not demand that their husband negotiate every correction. They accepted that the man had the right to impose order with the body. They accepted that pain was part of the bond. They accepted that real love was shown by enduring the discipline and returning to serve with even greater humility.

Dorothy Dix, one of the most listened-to voices of her time, did not condemn these practices. She normalized them. She even said the mother should have started much earlier. That was not extremism. It was common sense in an age when words still had their original meaning: authority meant real power to correct, respect meant obedience, love meant the strength to endure.

Feminism and liberalism did not only change the laws. They deformed the language until these letters look monstrous. But they are not. They are the testimony of women who understood their place and who, precisely because of that, could love truly. Male authority was not abuse. It was order. And order, once lost, can only be recovered by returning to what always worked.

Take a moment to appreciate these guardians of the tradition that came before you. Authentic women.