Most people who practice wife spanking aren’t overly swayed by the opinions of the culture. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. However, the opinions of the culture do demand the practice is usually private, and often the culture demonizes those who discipline their wives. For that reason, I want to take the time to answer some of the accusations against wife spanking, both from the secular world, and from misinformed Christians. Their false claims and accusations deserve an accurate response.
First, let me say, I don’t think as many people have trouble with couples doing spanking as a kink, since they write it off as a bedroom thing. Not everyone has trouble with the theatrical end of the fetish community, or the “gay” leather crowd. They just put that in a special box. What they MOST have a problem with is a man spanking his wife as a part of their marriage, because he is the authority, and she needs to learn submission to him. The society hates that the most because they hate the man’s authority in a real marriage the most, and they hate the Christian faith that lies behind and within the traditional family. A sexy spanking is not everything they hate. A Christian home where the man is the head, IS everything they hate, so it is this form of domestic discipline that seems to get the most attacks. If it were sodomites in leather, far fewer people would be complaining about the whips.
The commonest cry against a man spanking his wife is that it is abuse. The word abuse in this culture is basically a cuss word that people level against anything they don’t like which is forceful. They really can’t prove it is wrong, they just label it abuse, and anyone who believes the charge regards it as evil. The word abuse often has little more meaning than the word doo-doo head. Since we can see it acts as a mere cuss word, let’s look instead at the possible content of the word abuse, and see if the content fits the practice of wife spanking and describes something which is wrong. I think we will find it doesn’t.
Abuse suggests that an act involves the misuse of physical force, but to prove that wife spanking is abuse then, you’d have to show that this is a misuse of force first (try and say that ten times fast). Is a police officer chasing down a suspect abuse? It certainly involves violent force. Nearly anyone would say — no it isn’t abuse — and they’d be correct. It is not abuse because the use of force is good and just. The man is a criminal and it is the job of the officer to arrest him, and the officer represents the state, which has authority. We say the same thing when the officer puts the criminal in jail. We don’t compare it with a psychopath picking up a random victim and putting them behind bars. We recognize it is a just act which punishes evil. We discern that based on the officer’s job and the authority of the state.
Similarly we see in marriage that the use of force in discipline is not an arbitrary attack, but is a punishment by the one in authority. The man has rightful authority given by God, and he may punish those he has authority over when they do evil. A spanking then is not akin to street crime. It is not an assault. A spanking is a just punishment of an offender, in this case, by someone who loves and cares for the offender much more than the state loves and cares for us.
Moreover, abuse generally connotes that there is a victim who is unwilling who is being assaulted. The word abuse suggests the person’s will is not being respected. However, even this basic facet of the word abuse does not describe wife spanking. That is because the will of the person receiving the spanking was absolutely necessary for the marriage to take place in the first place, when she accepted her man’s authority over her. Most commonly, her will was also involved in accepting a relationship which included spanking as a form of discipline. That’s actually much MORE respect than is shown to the will of the criminal, whom the police chase and tackle, since in his case he likely was born a citizen, and was born in subordination to the state, forced to accept its authority. The wife being spanked has more will involved than the citizen being arrested, since she actually accepted her husband’s leadership. So where is the will being violated by wife spanking? It clearly is not.
Next, there is a nearly intangible quality in the word abuse that suggests a person is being treated in a degrading fashion. They are being treated like they lack dignity. This is a somewhat subjective area, but we all recognize it nonetheless. We would be horrified to see anyone treating another like an animal, or like a machine, or without any respect for their basic dignity. Yet a spanking does not treat anyone as though they lack dignity. rather, it respects their dignity. A spanking puts the wife through a very short term correction, in which she will be lectured, instructed, and spanked in a painful way on her bottom. Then it will be over and she will be restored. That actually shows more respect for her dignity than many other forms of discipline in society, be it the state that locks a criminal up and throws away the key, or an employer who fires an employee, never to care again what happens to them in the future. A husband fully respects his wife’s humanity when he spanks her for her wrongs.
The word abuse also connotes that something is “cruel,” or harsh in an excessive way. This is also a bit subjective, and no one would argue that some spankings can be cruel if they are done wrongly, but spanking in itself is not especially cruel. In fact it is practiced in a way that makes sure there is no long-term injury, and nearly all husbands do their best to make the harshness of a spanking simply appropriate to the offense, neither too harsh or too lax. The humbling and the pain are non-injurious, short-term events.
By comparison, as I point out in my introduction to this manual, most people in society approve of the state using methods which are about a thousand times crueler. The state sends its offenders to prison, a place of danger so great the level of assault is incalculably high, as are the number of rapes. A person loses their job long term while in prison, and is separated from their loved ones long term. The chance of divorce increases greatly every year one is in prison, and the rate of suicide is 7-10 times higher than the national average. Now THAT is a cruel punishment. Spanking, by comparison, is a walk in the park.
That is to say nothing of societally approved divorce, which is linked to a variety of terrible ills, including greater chance of criminality in children, greater chance of promiscuity in children, greater danger to women and children, lowered economic level, lowered educational level, lowered psychological health, increased risk of real abuse, and a high rate of violence and suicide that follows a divorce. Society approves of this demonstrably destructive act. For the same people who approve of divorce, and other similar acts, to attack marital spanking as “cruel” is unspeakably irrational. It is pure hypocrisy on the grandest scale. Spanking is a calm, firm, loving way to correct a woman. After her punishment she is restored, and the fullness of the beautiful marriage union continues. It is a very humane and thoughtful punishment. Not cruel on any meaningful level, unless it is grossly misused.
Others object to spanking a wife because you’re sure that — spanking is for children. Honestly, I don’t know why they are so sure of that. It’s true children do get spanked. But where is the logic that demands that because children get spanked, adults do not? Children read books. Adults also read books. It’s just that the adults read more advanced books, and a wider variety of topics. Children ride bikes — any childhood would be incomplete without tricycles and bicycles — and adults ALSO ride bikes, they just use a larger kind and go on more challenging paths. Children get talked to when they are bad as well. Adults also get talked to when they are bad. We could compile a list much longer than this, but I think so far it accurately shows that there is no logic to the claim that children being spanked means adults do not get spanked. It’s just a common assertion.
Adults certainly DO get spanked. Spankings in marriage are an ancient practice, and even today are more common than you’d think. Many would testify to the good that marital spanking did for them; how it helped bring peace to their relationship, put bad behavior behind them, or brought them closer to their spouse. Spanking has also been practiced as a civil punishment for millennia, so I guess all of those governments and magistrates didn’t get the news that “only children” get spanked. Granted, those punishments are more accurately called flogging or something similar, but they amount to corporal punishment as spanking does. Considering the great number of people rotting away in prisons, and the great number of people who learn to be more hardened criminals in prisons, the use of flogging ought to be seen as a legitimate alternative to mass incarceration today. It is a deterrent, at least for some people, and avoids lengthy prison terms. The modern nation of Singapore is famous for using caning, and they run a very orderly, peaceful, clean society. I see no basis to tell them they’re wrong.
For many modern secularists, the biggest problem is that spanking “disempowers” women. They’d be more accepting if it were men being spanked. But their philosophy just cannot accept a woman being handled firmly by a man. In their minds, she needs to have power. This is wrong on two different levels. Firstly, it assumes that women ought to either be in power, or have the same tier as men, without actually proving it. Take away that assumption and their case dissolves. A woman is not on the same tier as a man, nor was she made for the same role. God has placed woman under man in marriage, and our basic biology affirms this role and aids her in gentle submission to her man. She is designed to be softer. To be nurturing. He is designed for leadership and strength. More importantly, those roles have been given by God. Our Creator is the same One who gave us our design, and gave us our biology which assists us in those roles. Once you drop the assumption that women should hold authority, or should be equal in some hammered-flat sense, a spanking no more disempowers a woman than being given a ticket disempowers a citizen. It is simply a corrective act on one who is under authority. Their level of power has not been harmed in any way.
As I mention in my piece on societal illusions, looked at from the right way, spanking actually empowers the wife. It doesn’t empower her in the feminist usage of the word, but it empowers her according to the basic meaning of power — it gives her greater power to do what her actual role is. Her role according to God and nature is in submission to her husband and in helping him. Time over her husband’s knee empowers her to that aim, by growing in who she is, and toward who she aims to be. Since a woman is also to be virtuous, gentle, and holy, whenever her husband corrects her bad behavior it is empowering her toward that desired end. It helps refine her. It softens her. It corrects her for acts that harm her, the marriage, or the home. Like any loving chastisement, it aims to better her toward being a godly person. Since her aim is to be a godly woman, the correction empowers her.
Have no doubts about it, when secularists complain about male heads of the home spanking their wives, their ultimate beef is not with a spanking. It is with the authority of the man. It is more greatly with the authority that lies behind his — which is the authority of Christ. That is why you will find just as many disgusting and vicious attacks on male headship in the home coming from godless men as you will find against wife spanking. Spanking is a mere characteristic of some homes, but it is the male authority they hate. More than that the Christian and natural family. More than that the Savior. The Savior demands we have a light shined on our sins, recognize our own guilt, and repent. He demands we recognize the authority of God over man, and the coming Judgment. He may offer a simple way to be forgiven and have peace and life forever if we trust in Him, but for those who love sin, turning away from our present life sounds like an assault, and an insult to their ego. The Christian husband is a Christ figure, and they despise what he reminds them of — that there is a God, and that their sin WILL be exposed.
Finally, the secular objectors to marital discipline lack a basis for their attacks on the practice. Not only are their arguments against it confused and lacking in understanding, but they simply have no foundation to call it wrong. That is because when you deny the God who made all there is, you deny the basis for the moral law itself. There is no thing right or wrong on any fundamental level for the atheist. Some are honest enough to admit that in open debate. If you and I are just bags of chemicals that evolved accidentally, there is nothing wrong with a bag of chemicals spanking the bag of chemicals that lives with them. Not only that, but there is nothing wrong with one accidentally evolved creature raping and murdering another accidentally evolved creature. In fact, rape and murder could be argued as very advantageous from a naturalist perspective — it gives the one raping and murdering and advantage over his enemies, and may give his people group an advantage over their enemies.
Look how successful the Mongols were with building an empire, and slaughtering anyone who stood in their way. Do you have any idea how many people across Asia and Europe have Genghis Khan’s DNA in them? It must be many millions. The Mongols did so much rape, they spread their genome much more successfully than others. From the atheist perspective that actually makes them very successful, and those whom they defeated, simply losers. It is not good or evil: it just is. So for the secularist to come about claiming spanking is wrong, when he cannot even show from his own worldview that rape and murder is wrong, is pure hypocrisy. If there is nothing wrong with rape and murder, there is nothing wrong with spanking your wife either. It’s just what some chemical accidents prefer to do, for their pleasure or their advantage. Learn to live with it.
Now that we have seen how weak are the contemporary secular claims that wife spanking is wrong, let’s have a look at the Christian objections to the practice. Do these lean mean biblical exegetes have anything stronger to offer, or are they just blowing more hot air?
[Read Part 2: Jesus Says Spanking is Bad, M’Kay]
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