In a Jason Kidd thread, RM95 said any man who hits his wife should be castrated. Now I don't mean to hold him to that, but it begged the question of just how bad is it to hit your wife. I'm not saying you should hit your wife. In fact, my own wife may be reading this right now (I know she's bored at work) so I want to be sure not to advocate anything like that. But I wonder if it should evince such strong feelings. Is hitting your wife worse than hitting a stranger (controlling for gender)? Is it worse than hitting a friend? Sibling? Is it possible for a wife to have it coming to her? Do you think it's preferable to cheating on your wife? Stealing from your wife? Ignoring your wife? Mudering her for infidelity? Is hitting one's wife worse than stealing a bike? Dealing heroin? Killing a dog? Evading taxes? What would be an appropriate punishment? Anyone want to second castration? N.B. It's probably useful to define a term. By hitting I mean a single incident of a physical attack (like what seems to be the case with Kidd), not a nightly ritual of spousal abuse. If you want to talk about a pattern of repeated abuse, please be clear on that. Also, be sure to compare apples with apples: if you want to talk about a daily beating of a spouse, you can't compare that to a single attack on a stranger. ------------------ RealGM Rockets Draft Obligations Summary Gafford Art Artisan
Well, before I give my opinion on this hornet's nest, what is the current penalty for wife abuse? Anyone know? ------------------ "Of course, everything looks bad if you remember it!" Homer Simpson
Define attack. A slap, push, shove, punch, kick, stabbing, shooting, rape? How bout repeated slaps, pushes, shoves, punches, kicks, or stabbings? Is that just one attack? Ya have to give a better definition of what constitutes a single attack in order to answer your question the way you want it answered. ------------------ "Somebody DO something out there." -Bill Walton
Hitting your wife or girlfriend is pretty damn lowdown in my book. It's just about the scumbag-giest thing a man can do. How does it rank against other vile things and what is the appropriate punishment? You could argue that one for years and years. The appropriate punishment should include some type of psychological counseling/treatment. Punishment for drug posession should include that as well. ------------------ "Blues is a Healer" --John Lee Hooker
I don't think hitting a woman is a very "man-ly" thing to do. If you consider yourself a man, then it's not a very respectable thing to do and I feel that it's a very bad thing to do. For me, it boils down to respect. I would never hit a woman, it's just the way I was brought up. Not to mention that it would be considered, if you were married or common-law, as domestic violence or assault. Now if a woman hits another woman, it's a cat-fight and look out cause I'm gonna be making my way up front to see that! rH [This message has been edited by rockHEAD (edited February 05, 2001).]
RunninRaven: I don't know what the punishment is. I'm sure it spans a great spectrum of punishment to fit the severity of the crime. I know in many, many cases, police are reluctant to make an arrest because they don't want to entangle the law in domestic life. Timing: If my definition is too loose for your purposes, can we arbitrarily use a single hard slap to the face as a unit? Tex: I'd agree that beating your wife is pretty lowdown. I'll start: I don't think hitting anyone is very tolerable thing for a person to do. And I think that spousal abuse (to be differentiated from merely hitting your wife once) is especially reprehensible because it is an abuse of power and an abuse of a public institution (marriage) that tends to shield one from punishment. For this reason, I thinksuch spousal abuse should be punished harshly. However, I think isolated incidents of a man hitting his wife gets unfairly lumped in with this sort of spousal abuse. Given the closeness of the relationship in a marriage, the emotions involved are often at a higher pitch than in other relationships and you can expect, as a result, more cases of people going overboard when they are angry. Also, women are not porcelain dolls. You can hit one without killing her, or even putting her in her place. How different is it from getting in a fist-fight with a good friend? I've been in fights like that and continued being friends without any real effect on the relationship. Why is it different when you switch genders? There are ways in which a spouse can be just as or more hurtful by their words or actions than with physical violence. On one side of that coin, it is possible to have it coming; on the other, you could do worse still than hitting someone (of course, you can and should also do better than that). I wasn't sure if I'd even get a response on this thread since it is or can be a very touchy subject. I'd hate to see Jason Kidd get castrated though, until we give a little thought on the subject. What I think is curious/neato about the views on abuse is that it has risen in villainy over time. They had done a survey in the '60s (?) asking people to rate how serious they thought various crimes were. They did another survey a decade later and compared the results. They found that dealing heroin went way up on the list (to #1 in the '70s, in fact) as did cop-killing and others that were kind of hot-button subjects at that time. Dealing heroin has gone down since then. It seems to me that spousal abuse is one of these things (along with drunk driving, hate crimes and others) that go up on the list of villainy simply because of increased public interest and discussion. Not that that's an altogether bad thing. Education and awareness are good things; less good is public hysteria and demonization of people and problems that are really quite complex. ------------------ RealGM Rockets Draft Obligations Summary Gafford Art Artisan
I will admit that my statement was a bit harsh. I just believe that hitting a woman, especially one you supposedly love, is about the worst thing a man can do. So, I really don't consider males who do that, men. I'm a pretty non-violent guy in general. I understand things get taken too far, and a fight is pretty much inevitable, but that's between same genders, or at least a pretty freakin strong woman who could hold her own. ------------------ "Knickerbocker Please!" visit www.swirve.com, coming January 20th, the top 10 films of 2000! http://www.geocities.com/clutch34_2000 for great Rocket insight by some of your fellow BBS posters!
I don't know if my opinion on this subject can be attributed to being raised as a Southern Gentleman, or is it because of what I saw happen to my Mom during their very messy divorce... With that being said, I think that any man who can't find something else to hit when they lose their cool other than their wife is no "man" at all.. I would consider him just another spineless,pansy-ass little f*ck!! But that's just my opinion....I could be wrong. ------------------ You would have to pry the ball outta his hands with a crowbar. Bill Worrell referring to Cuttino.
The only reason to hit your wife is if your wife snaps, pulls out a weapon and tries to kill you, your family and/or anybody else. Anything else, you walk away, and use legal matters if it's serious enough. ------------------ Dream a deadly Dream. . .
Assuming there is no specific reason given for the hard slap, and only one hard slap is given, here is how I would rate things, from least serious to most serious: Ignoring your wife Evading taxes Killing a dog Stealing a bike Stealing from your wife Cheating on your wife Hitting a stranger Hitting a friend Hitting a sibling Hitting your wife Dealing heroin Killing your wife for infidelity Hitting innocent children (these bastards should be castrated). As for the punishment, you can't really use the above method, because I doubt that the law sees these crimes in the same light as I do. But some kind of therapy should be required if a man hits his wife. And some kind of therapy should be provided for the wife (though not required) in case she seems to be of unsound mind, and wants to stay with a jerk who treats her bad. Jailwise, a man who slaps his wife hard should spend some time in jail, but not an enormous amount of time, but enough to show him that it will not be tolerated... maybe a year max. ------------------ "Of course, everything looks bad if you remember it!" Homer Simpson [This message has been edited by RunninRaven (edited February 05, 2001).] [This message has been edited by RunninRaven (edited February 05, 2001).]
I think of some of yall are just full of macho crap. Women aren't children, they're adults. Hitting anyone is a crime, whether they be a man or woman. The law doesn't say oh you slapped him but he's a guy so that's not battery. I would put slapping a woman one time right about in the middle of your scenarios. 1)Dealing heroin 2)Killing a dog 2)Slapping a woman 4)Evading taxes 5)Stealing a bike ------------------ "Somebody DO something out there." -Bill Walton
Still is not a goos reason to hit...defend yourself if necessary...restrain her..tie her up..whatever...but you should never hit the woman that you claim to love enuff to marry. If she gets psycho...restrain her,call the cops and sort it out legally. just my .02 ------------------ You would have to pry the ball outta his hands with a crowbar. Bill Worrell referring to Cuttino.
I dont get it...why are we full of macho crap? ..am I missing something? ------------------ You would have to pry the ball outta his hands with a crowbar. Bill Worrell referring to Cuttino.
Man or woman, you pull a weapon on me I'm going to punch and knock you out, forget slapping. Good luck restraining a woman if she has a knife or a gun. . . Stealing a bike is one of your top 5 worse things that can happen!? ------------------ Dream a deadly Dream. . . [This message has been edited by RocksMillenium (edited February 05, 2001).]
Hitting your wife is worse than hitting yourself, but not as bad as murdering 9,241 infant children just for the hell of it. Hope that cleared everything up! ------------------ C-son _ __________ _ !Viva La' Dream!
I don't believe hitting a woman is right, but I can relate one story told to me by a friend's dad: Back in the '60s, he was on a date with some girl and they started arguing on the drive home. Apparently, she started going nuts and started hitting him while he was driving. He nearly wrecked the car trying to get her off of him. He did the only thing he thought he could do: he back-handed her, which stopped her assault. She then went into a tearful tirade about "Wait until I tell my daddy." When they got to her house, he marched up to her father and told him exactly what happened. Her father agreed with him, given the circumstances. Do I think it is right to ever hit a woman? No Do I think it might be sometimes justified? Yes ------------------ "Salt Lake City, Utah. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany." --Olaju-Won Kenobi, to young jedi Steve (Fran)'chiseWalker [This message has been edited by Lynus302 (edited February 05, 2001).]
I totally agree Lynus! Sometimes circumstances make you do things you would never do. ------------------ Dream a deadly Dream. . .
Cool! I like this game: I'd have to rank them, with the worst being the first-- 1) Slapping a woman 2) Killing a dog 3) Stealing a bike 4) Dealing heroin (unless it's to kids, then it would be higher) 5) Evading taxes (actually, collecting taxes might rank higher than evading them ) I almost put killing a dog as #1. I don't think I can though, since I eat meat. Wouldn't I then be saying that eating a steak is worse than slapping a woman? That's why I don't think I can rank killing a dog as the worst offense. Does anybody else think it might be worse to kill a companion animal though? Is it as simple as saying a cow's life is worth no more than a pet dog? Does the title "man's best friend" not win a dog more consideration? If not, I guess I'd have to move killing a dog down, as much as it just doesn't seem right. Maybe I'll have to become a vegetarian like Jeff!
SENARIO: Wife comes at you with a Knife? Wife repeatedly beating on you? Wife pulls a gun on you? Wife Sexin ya best friend? Wife Choking your child? Wife trying to kill you? Never say never I won't say there is a JUSTIFIBLe reason to hit a woman . . . . but in some instances your choices maybe limited. It's ok for a woman to hit/beat the **** out of a man? funny we laff at a guy who is scratched up and bloody and bruise by a woman . .. but we don't allow him any recourse. If you read about a Battered husband. . . you giggle a bit .. thinking WHAT KIND OF A MAN IS THIS? QUESTION: what should he have done? Rocket River ------------------
