The tradition of regularly hitting his wife appeared in Russia with the adoption of Christianity. In the pagan period, the woman was a more equal member of society than in the Christian one. Until the 11th century, women remained under the protection of their close relatives (father and brothers), even if they got married. And they stood up like a mountain for their beloved daughter and sister. This did not apply only to stolen or bought wives, who existed in the families of spouses in the position of slaves.
Women who entered into marriage by their own consent or by agreement between their parents had many rights. They could even "get divorced" - to leave the husband if they were not satisfied with the marriage. The role of a woman was also reflected in the presence of female deities: Lada is the goddess of love and marriage, Makosh is the goddess of spinning, women in labor are divine messengers who determined the fate of the child at birth.
After the baptism of Rus
Together with the baptism, Russia adopted a new morality, which most unfavorably affected the fate of a Russian woman. With the adoption of monotheism and the establishment of the dominant role of a man, a woman in the family began to be perceived as a being to some extent inferior, unreasonable, like a child. The husband had to literally take care of his wife, take care of her morality and "the salvation of the soul."
This concern was to be expressed in severity and regular beatings. Children were brought up in the same way. In many ways, this stereotype of behavior was instilled by the clergy, who in the Middle Ages saw in a woman the root of all evil, devilish temptation and the source of evil. To prevent a woman's soul from going to hell, her husband was simply obliged to regularly “instigate” her with “beating”.
Corporal punishment was considered a kind of preventive work. They had to knock out of a woman all the vices that she was endowed with from birth by definition. If a man beat his wife, it means that he was concerned about saving her soul from the hellish flame. The women themselves learned this lesson so that the absence of beatings was perceived as a sign of a husband's lack of love and care. Such laws of family life were reflected in the famous literary monument “Domostroy”.
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How to beat your wife
"Domostroy" was created by unknown authors around the 15th-16th centuries in the Novgorod Republic. In the opinion of Alexander Sergeevich Orlov, Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov, and other Russian literary critics and historians, who studied this document, Domostroy was the result of the work of many priests, “teachers of the people”, and at the same time the quintessence of the moral norms of society of that period.
In this document, more than one chapter is devoted to the matter of "raising a wife". An anonymous counselor teaches respectable men how to beat their wife properly so as not to seriously injure her. It was not recommended for a man to hit a woman in the eyes, ears and other important parts of the body, so as not to cripple his spouse. Also, one should not use heavy and especially metal objects for "education", since all this can lead to disability.
Physical methods of education according to "Domostroy" were supposed to be applied not only to wives, but also to children, servants and careless workers. Regular tapping of all these people - sometimes just like that, for preventive purposes - was the sacred duty of a man, as the head of the family. Thus, as a diligent shepherd, he took care of his “flock”.
Doesn't hit - means he doesn't love
This is how Russian women perceived a more loyal attitude towards themselves. Now this may seem strange and wild, but we must not forget that the woman was brought up in a patriarchal society. Her whole life was regulated by the harsh laws of the family, clan. The overwhelming majority of Russian women were uneducated and narrow-minded. They had no idea that living in a family could be somehow different. And there were no such examples.
If it happened - very rarely - to a woman to marry a foreigner, she quite naturally perceived the absence of beatings from her husband as a sign of his dislike. Over time, the society has forgotten the original meaning of corporal punishment as a way of education "in the fear of God." Men began to beat their wives simply out of jealousy or self-will. Worst of all, women themselves continue to accept this behavior as the norm and endure assault for years.
The opinion of psychologists
Traditions are very strong in Russian society. Even the wildest and most absurd. The memory of their ancestors dictates to Russian women to endure the beatings in silence and not bring the problem to the public. This is less common in intelligent families; more common in the lower strata of the population. In the latter, regular beatings can be aggravated by drunkenness and are often combined with other forms of violence (moral, sexual).
No matter how women think that “beats means loves”, violence is only violence. Often, a degraded man continues to live with a long-unloved woman and at the same time he continues to beat her too. There is no question of any love in such families. In addition, in a huge number of cases, beatings end in murder. More than 10 thousand Russian women are killed by their husbands every year.
The fruits of such "love"
Children also suffer from domestic violence. Even without being direct victims of beatings, they grow up morally defective. Psychologists call this abnormality the Stockholm Syndrome. It is expressed in the inability of a person who was subjected to any kind of violence in childhood to resist it in adulthood. This also applies to situations where the child regularly observes the beating of his mother.
Such a person becomes helpless before the aggressor. Sometimes he not only cannot defend himself, but also falls into moral dependence on the rapist. If a child, like his mother, was subjected to violence, he just grows up with mental disorders of one kind or another.
Depending on the type of personality and the strength of the trauma, victims of violence can develop a whole range of deviations: anxiety disorder, manic-depressive psychosis, etc. Girls who grew up in such families adopt the mother's demeanor and grow up as pre-existing victims. Intuitively, they find themselves and an appropriate partner prone to violence. This forms a very strong connection "victim - tyrant", which often breaks only with the death of the victim.
Boys are even more difficult because they can imitate their father's behavior. This is not a 100% regularity, but very often boys raised in an environment of cruelty and violence become extremely cruel themselves. If such "upbringing" is superimposed on certain psychological characteristics of the individual, society gets a ready-made killer maniac. Such people can hardly be considered "the fruits of love."