Rule of Thumb

DaveS

DaveS

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Some time ago I innocently using this expression and was immediately taken to task by a "right on" aquaintance who was astonished that I did not realise that said phrase was offensive to women. Apparently it dated from some old rule that a man could beat his wife with impunity provided the weapon used was no thicker than his thumb. Knowing when best not to argue I simply nodded wisely.

More recently I heard a nautical (and not remotely offensive) derivation which sounded to me as being at least equally likely. Anyone else heard of it?

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she's right <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifrulethumb.shtml>http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifrulethumb.shtml</A> ...but hopefully reassuring repulsive?

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Re: bolleoux

The "Rule of Thumb for Wife-Beating" Hoax

Feminists often make that claim that the "rule of thumb" used to mean that it was legal to beat your wife with a rod, so long as that rod were no thicker than the husband's thumb. Thus, one constantly runs into assertions like this:

someone might want to be careful using "rule of thumb" in a sarcastic way. my criminal law teacher at UCLA noted that rule of thumb started in England for punishing wives who cheated on their husbands. the rule was that the rod used to beat them could not be thicker than one's thumb(!).





However, Christina Hoff Sommers documents how the link between the phrase "rule of thumb"
and wifebeating is a feminist-inspired myth of recent vintage.
In her book "Who Stole Feminism" (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1994, p. 203) Sommers writes:

...The 'rule of thumb' story is an example of revisionist history that feminists happily fell into believing. It reinforces their perspective on society, and they tell it as a way of winning converts to their angry creed...

The 'rule of thumb', however, turns out to be an excellent example of what may be called a feminist fiction. Is is not to be found in William Blackstone's treatise on English common law. On the contrary, British law since the 1700s and our American laws predating the Revolution prohibit wife beating, though there have been periods and places in which the prohibition was only indifferently enforced.

That the phrase did not even originate in legal practice could have been ascertained by any fact-checker who took the trouble to look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, which notes that the term has been used metaphorically for at least three hundred years to refer to any method of measurement or technique of estimation derived from experience rather than science.

According to Canadian folklorist Philip Hiscock, "The real explanation of 'rule of thumb' is that it derives from wood workers... who knew their trade so well they rarely or never fell back on the use of such things as rulers. instead, they would measure things by, for example, the length of their thumbs." Hiscock adds that the phrase came into metaphorical use by the late seventeenth century. Hiscock could not track the source of the idea that the term derives from a principle governing wife beating, but he believes it is an example of 'modern folklore' and compares it to other 'back-formed explanations.' such as the claim asparagus comes from 'sparrow-grass' or that 'ring around the rosy' is about the plague.

We shall see that Hiscock's hunch was correct, but we must begin by exonerating William Blackstone (1723-1780), the Englishman who codified centuries of legal customs and practices into the elegant and clearly organized tome known as Commentaries on the Laws of England. The Commentaries, a classic of legal literature, became the basis for the development of American law. The so-called rule of thumb as a guideline for wife-beating does not occur in Blackstone's compendium, although he does refer to an ancient law that permitted "domestic chastisement"....

In America, there have been laws against wife beating since before the Revolution. By 1870, it was illegal in almost every state; but even before then, wife-beaters were arrested and punished for assault and battery. The historian and feminist Elizabeth Pleck observes in a scholarly article entitled "Wife-Battering in Nineteenth-Century America":

It has often been claimed that wife-beating in nineteenth-century America was legal... Actually, though, several states passed statutes legally prohibiting wife-beating; and at least one statute even predates the American Revolution. The Massachusetts Bay Colony prohibited wife-beating as early as 1655. The edict states: "No man shall strike his wife nor any woman her husband on penalty of such fine not exceeding ten pounds for one offense, or such corporal punishment as the County shall determine."

[Pleck] points out that punishments for wife-beaters could be severe: according to an 1882 Maryland statute, the culprit could receive forty lashes at the whipping post; in Delaware, the number was thirty. In New Mexico, fines ranging from $225 to $1000 were levied, or sentences of one to five years in prison imposed. For most of our history, in fact, wife-beating has been considered a sin comparable to to thievery or adultery. Religious groups -- especially Protestant groups such as Quakers, Methodists, and Baptists -- punished, shunned, and excommunicated wife-beaters. Husbands, brothers, and neighbors often took vengence against the batterer. Vigilante parties sometimes abducted wife-beaters and whipped them.

Just how did the false account originate, and how did it achieve authority and currency? As with many myths, there is a small core of fact surrounded by an accretion of error. In the course of rendering rulings on cases before them, two Southern judges had alluded to an 'ancient law' according to which a man could beat his wife as long as the implement was not wider than his thumb. The judges, one from North Carolina and one from Mississippi, did not accept the authority of the 'ancient law.' The North Carolina judge refered to it as 'barbarism,' and both judges found the husband in the case in question guilty of wife abuse. Nevertheless, their rulings seemed to tolerate the notion that men had a measure of latitude in physically chastising their wives. Fortunately, as Pleck takes pains to remind us, they were not representative of judicial opinion in the rest of the country.

In 1976, Del Martin, a coordinator of the N.O.W. Task Force on Battered Women, came across a reference to the two judges and their remarks. Neither judge had used the phrase "rule of thumb," but a thumb had been mentioned, and Ms. Martin took note of it:


Our law, based upon the old English common-law doctrines, explicitly permitted wife-beating for correctional purposes. However, certain restrictions did exist... For instance, the common-law doctrine had been modified to allow the husband "the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no bigger than his thumb" -- a rule of thumb, so to speak.
Ms. Martin had not claimed that the term "rule of thumb" originated from common law. Before long, however, the "ancient law" alluded to by two obscure Southern judges was being treated as an unchallenged principle of both British and American law, and journalists and academics alike were bandying the notion about. Feminist Terry Davidson, in an article entitled "Wife Beating: A Recurring Phenomenon Throughout History," claims that "one of the reasons nineteenth century British wives were dealt with so harshly by their husbands and by their legal system was the 'rule of thumb'" and castigates Blackstone himself. "Blackstone saw nothing unreasonable about the wife-beating law. In fact, he believed it to be quite moderate."

These interpretive errors were given added authority by a group of scholars and lawyers who, in 1982, prepared a report on wife abuse for the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Under the Rule of Thumb: Battered Women and the Administration of Justice -- A Report of the United States Commission on Civil Rights_. On the second page, they note: "American law is built upon the British common law that condoned wife beating and even prescribed the weapon to be used. This 'rule of thumb' stipulated that a man could only beat his wife with a 'rod not thicker than his thumb.'" It went on to speak of Blackstone as the jurist who "greatly influenced the making of the law in the American colonies [and who] commented on the 'rule of thumb,'" justifying the rule by noting that "the law thought it reasonable to intrust [the husband] with this power of... chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children."

The publication of the report established the feminist fable about the origins of the term in popular lore, and the misogyny of Blackstone and "our law" as "fact." Misstatements about the "rule of thumb" still appear in the popular press.

That same 1993 Time magazine article that popularized the nonexistent March of Dimes study on domestic violence and birth defects and reported that "between 22% and 35% of all visits by females to emergency rooms are for injuries from domestic assaults" also cited new York University law professor Holly Maguigan: "We talk about the notion of the rule of thumb, forgetting that it had to do with the restriction on a man's right to use a weapon against his wife: he couldn't use a rod that was larger than his thumb." Professor Maguigan's law students would do well to check their Blackstone.


<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
 
Inching towards the truth

The end joint of the adult male thumb is very close to one inch long. Thus it is possible to measure something moderately accurately using the thumb - the rule of thumb.

As an aside, the French word for thumb is 'le pouce', which is also the French word for inch, and is still used commonly today in France, despite 200 years of metrication. Actually the French most commonly use it to measure screen sizes of TVs and monitors.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>
 
Re: Wife Beating - Co-incidence?

Is there any link between the cessation of wife beating in UK and the fall of the British Empire, other than the co-incidence in dates? /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

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I heard it was based on a method of testing flour by Millers. By rubbing the flour between Thumb and Forefinger, they could decide whether it was sufficiently milled.

The OED defines it as "a general principle or a method derived from practice or experience rather than theory". This coincides with what I've always thought of as the meaning of the phrase.

However, I will mention the wife beating reference to SWMBO and see if she is prepared to consider using a smaller stick.

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Of course in Medieval times a wife was just one of a man's chattels - except in Ireland where, under the Brehon laws, they were fully enfranchised.

John



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size does count

and the first official measurement for an inch is King John's own thumb. Lots of old measurements come from the body. A fathom of rope is just about what you'd measure with your arms outstretched, a yard is from your fingertip to your nose with the arm fully extended, a foot is a foot clad in medaevil winklepickers. The penis however was abandoned as a unit of measurement in the middle ages as it was found to be too unreliable.

<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by JohnM on 06/10/2004 18:08 (server time).</FONT></P>
 
Re: Wife Beating - Co-incidence?

Don't know what makes you think its ceased.

Still very much alive and kicking (literally)

Not common for rods, of any thinkness, to be used - fists and feet are the most common, usually after large quantities of beer.

Amazingly on many occasions the victim is adamant that she wants to drop the charges.

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Re: Wife Beating - Co-incidence?

You need to recognise the difference between assault and a bit of marital disci..............help here comes SWMBO.........................

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Re: bolleoux

Brendan
I can only sit back in awe of your knowledge<s>

Where the hell did you dig that lot up from?

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Is there anything in that brain of yours re. husband beating?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by TheBoatman on 07/10/2004 00:29 (server time).</FONT></P>
 
Some splendid replies. I was delighted to see the erudite exposure of the "legalised wife beating" derivation as being based on unthinking repetition, poor research and willingness to have preconceptions confirmed. I will keep this in mind for dropping into conversation at a suitable opportunity (having first ensured a clear escape route.)

On the real definition: two contenders were suggested. There's the Miller theory, which might be right, but it does rather beg the question "why thumb?". Why not "thumb and finger" or "rub"? Aye, there's the rub...

Then there's the woodworker - or anyone else for that matter - using body parts as convenient measures for use when high precision is not required. That seems pretty persuasive - and the French inch gives powerful support.

No-one's come up with a nautical source, however. One more try before I tell you the version I was given?

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Re: bolleoux

Anyone with the intelligence to use search engines correctly and in context can find vast amounts of relevant information very quickly these days. I think that one took me about 3 minutes of scan reading a few sites before I found the authoritative text I was looking for (I'd read it previously, so helped that I knew what I was looking for)

Everything in the article can be researched indepently, but it's much easier if someone collates it all for you.

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
 
Re: bolleoux

>>>
Anyone with the intelligence to use search engines correctly and in context can find vast amounts of relevant information very quickly these days.
>>>

But we are dealing with feminists. They tend to be like student politicians, never allowing their opinions and views to be affected by facts.

<hr width=100% size=1>Two beers please, my friend is paying.
 
Intellectual property rights

>I think that one took me about 3 minutes of scan reading a few sites before I found the authoritative text I was looking for<

And breached their copyright in the process!

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>
 
Re: bolleoux

What's a search engine?

Is it when Jimi loses his outboard over the stern and goes looking for it?

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Re: bolleoux

Now explain "bolleoux".
Folklore has it that it was a term invented by french matelots to describe the distance between an English sailors knees or as described by Le Pain in his "Dicourse de le Englais anatomy" in 1648 "En place pur le bolleoux" Hence the term "cerveau sur le bolleoux" to describe those with low mentality. Have also heard it described as a substitute for "Meirde" as in "en charge de ancien bolleoux"
Discuss

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