***Known history of wife abuse?***
In the olden days such a “man” would be flogged. Then a bunch of busy body women decided flogging was “bad” and petitioned the courts to have it treated as a common crime with jail time but no flogging.
Up until around 1930, there was a law in Maryland that someone convicted of “wife beating”, would by tied to a post and publicly whipped. It wasn’t being enforced, so they did away with the law.