The ‘Non-Criminal’ Class: Wife-beating in Scotland (c. 1800-1949)

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The nineteenth century has been identified as one in which a ‘new softer patriarchy’ emerged along with a more companionate marriage; a wider acceptance of forms of domestic violence and a hardening of attitudes towards men who inflicted violence on their wives. Using criminal statistics, changes in law and practice and the discursive debates which permeated the Scottish media, this article will highlight how the relationship between provocation, criminal liability and diminished responsibility ensured that attitudes towards men who inflicted violence on their wives reflected greater levels of continuity rather than change in Scotland in the period 1850-1950.